31. Offer real-time global inventory availability. Showing web shoppers what's available in-store and online is fast becoming a mandate, but in-store employees need access too. A tablet-wielding associate can "save the sale" on the store floor by quickly determining that a product out of stock in her store is available 10 miles away.
Andy Lloyd, NetSuite, "Winning the Omnichannel Retail Arms Race: 5 Keys to Success in 2013 and Beyond," Jan. 29, ROI Report
32. Use dynamic ads. They're much more effective to show your shopper the boots that she was browsing before leaving your site. Even better, if your shopper has an item in their cart, why not serve up a promotion to entice her to come back and complete the order? These customized methods of reaching out to consumers typically convert better and are more eye-catching than traditional forms of web advertising."
Will Devlin, ShopVisible, "Using Retargeting to Get the Most Out of Your Ad Dollars," Aug. 2, ROI Report
33. The challenge extends beyond systems and data. Ensure that organizational structure, culture and training fully support the cross-channel customer experience.
Katherine Bahamonde, C. Wonder, The Top Women in Cross-Channel Retail," March/April, Retail Online Integration
Operations & Fulfillment
34. Consider service guarantee waivers. Do you file for late delivery credits? Quantify how much you're actually getting back on an annual basis. It's probably not much. Some shippers find it advantageous to secure deeper incentives up front in lieu of the service guarantee.
Rob Martinez, Shipware, "8 Ways to Use Parcel Carriers' 'Cost to Serve' Pricing to Your Advantage," April 17, Shipping Insights blog
35. Consider separating orders based on the type of gift packaging they require. For example, gift boxes may go to one set of pack stations, while gift-wrapped products go to others. By developing an optimized workflow, you're able to take advantage of process efficiencies and effectively manage a high volume of gift packaging and messaging requests.
Maria Haggerty, Dotcom Distribution, "Top 3 Bottlenecks in the Warehouse During the Holidays," Oct 7, The Art of Delivering Style blog
36. If you have extra space in your shipments, you might as well make the most of it by slipping in some flyers, newsletters or coupons. Hewlett-Packard (HP), for example, does a great job of advertising deals from Snapfish, a unit of HP that provides web-based photo-sharing and photo-printing services.
Jerry Jao, Retention Science, "Using Fulfillment as a Customer Retention Tool," September/October, Retail Online Integration
Search
37. Google product listing ads (PLAs), which rely heavily on images, have proven enormously effective for e-tailers who have figured out how to run PLAs in concert with traditional text campaigns. Coordinate your image production efforts with the requirements of your PLA team so that your products shine on Google Product Search.
Mark Simon, Didit, "Image Search Tips for E-Tailers," April 11, ROI Report
38. Always have a "catch all" target. Since you can't bid on specific keywords for PLAs, and search queries are matched by the unique product titles and descriptions, it's important to have a "catch all" or "all products" target in your campaign. By neglecting to do so you run the risk of missing traffic to relevant products in your feed.
Shannon Greene, Elite SEM, "Best Practices for Using Product Listing Ads," June 24,ROI Report
39. Make sure there's enough space to accommodate user queries (users will shorten their search terms if there's little space, and that's more likely to lead to failure). As important, review the search depth for your most popular terms if visitors are refining their queries all the time for something that's used often. If this happens a lot, devise a plan to either change your site search engine or customize it for the terms that fail the most.
Tim Ash, SiteTuners, "What Users Want: Using Internal Site Search for Prioritization," June 26, Designed to Convert blog
40. You should have a XML site map. If you don't, create one. It should be listed in your robots.txt file with a "Sitemaps" directive. If you have videos on your site, you'll need a video site map. If you have a mobile site, you'll need a mobile site map.
Stephan Spencer, SEO expert/author/speaker, "Retailing for Dummies," January/February, Retail Online Integration
The Retailer's Source for Content & Community
50 Best Tips of 2013
31. Offer real-time global inventory availability. Showing web shoppers what's available in-store and online is fast becoming a mandate, but in-store employees need access too. A tablet-wielding associate can "save the sale" on the store floor by quickly determining that a product out of stock in her store is available 10 miles away.
Andy Lloyd, NetSuite, "Winning the Omnichannel Retail Arms Race: 5 Keys to Success in 2013 and Beyond," Jan. 29, ROI Report
32. Use dynamic ads. They're much more effective to show your shopper the boots that she was browsing before leaving your site. Even better, if your shopper has an item in their cart, why not serve up a promotion to entice her to come back and complete the order? These customized methods of reaching out to consumers typically convert better and are more eye-catching than traditional forms of web advertising."
Will Devlin, ShopVisible, "Using Retargeting to Get the Most Out of Your Ad Dollars," Aug. 2, ROI Report
33. The challenge extends beyond systems and data. Ensure that organizational structure, culture and training fully support the cross-channel customer experience.
Katherine Bahamonde, C. Wonder, The Top Women in Cross-Channel Retail," March/April, Retail Online Integration
Operations & Fulfillment
34. Consider service guarantee waivers. Do you file for late delivery credits? Quantify how much you're actually getting back on an annual basis. It's probably not much. Some shippers find it advantageous to secure deeper incentives up front in lieu of the service guarantee.
Rob Martinez, Shipware, "8 Ways to Use Parcel Carriers' 'Cost to Serve' Pricing to Your Advantage," April 17, Shipping Insights blog
35. Consider separating orders based on the type of gift packaging they require. For example, gift boxes may go to one set of pack stations, while gift-wrapped products go to others. By developing an optimized workflow, you're able to take advantage of process efficiencies and effectively manage a high volume of gift packaging and messaging requests.
Maria Haggerty, Dotcom Distribution, "Top 3 Bottlenecks in the Warehouse During the Holidays," Oct 7, The Art of Delivering Style blog
36. If you have extra space in your shipments, you might as well make the most of it by slipping in some flyers, newsletters or coupons. Hewlett-Packard (HP), for example, does a great job of advertising deals from Snapfish, a unit of HP that provides web-based photo-sharing and photo-printing services.
Jerry Jao, Retention Science, "Using Fulfillment as a Customer Retention Tool," September/October, Retail Online Integration
Search
37. Google product listing ads (PLAs), which rely heavily on images, have proven enormously effective for e-tailers who have figured out how to run PLAs in concert with traditional text campaigns. Coordinate your image production efforts with the requirements of your PLA team so that your products shine on Google Product Search.
Mark Simon, Didit, "Image Search Tips for E-Tailers," April 11, ROI Report
38. Always have a "catch all" target. Since you can't bid on specific keywords for PLAs, and search queries are matched by the unique product titles and descriptions, it's important to have a "catch all" or "all products" target in your campaign. By neglecting to do so you run the risk of missing traffic to relevant products in your feed.
Shannon Greene, Elite SEM, "Best Practices for Using Product Listing Ads," June 24,ROI Report
39. Make sure there's enough space to accommodate user queries (users will shorten their search terms if there's little space, and that's more likely to lead to failure). As important, review the search depth for your most popular terms if visitors are refining their queries all the time for something that's used often. If this happens a lot, devise a plan to either change your site search engine or customize it for the terms that fail the most.
Tim Ash, SiteTuners, "What Users Want: Using Internal Site Search for Prioritization," June 26, Designed to Convert blog
40. You should have a XML site map. If you don't, create one. It should be listed in your robots.txt file with a "Sitemaps" directive. If you have videos on your site, you'll need a video site map. If you have a mobile site, you'll need a mobile site map.
Stephan Spencer, SEO expert/author/speaker, "Retailing for Dummies," January/February, Retail Online Integration