Break Down Your Barriers to Multichannel Success

9. Bridge the gap. You may have to work hard to get store personnel, in particular, to overcome the suspicion that the direct channel is taking business away from them.

“Retail personnel have different priorities,” Van Sickle said. “They’re concerned with hiring and firing staff, inventory control and shrinkage. For the direct division, the integration and accuracy of customer data is our most important asset. But in the stores, it’s often [lacking]. Sales associates’ priorities are to ring up sales and get customers out of the stores — not necessarily to capture customer data that they need to help them.”