TURNING THE LIGHTS "ON"

Many would say that business have long ago (a few years back) heeded the famous words of Jack Welch…paraphrasing, “Either businesses get serious about being online, or they will go the way of the dinosaurs."

Yet, I along with countless colleges and friends, have been mystified by how businesses still how many major online retailers still treat their online operations as either a completely separate business or worst yet….simply another “store”.

But, recent news appears that the bigger boys (or girls) are getting there. Nordstrom’s for one sees the potential and is strategically setting up operationally. See two excellent stories on their recent moves:

Nordstrom’s to achieve a billion in online sales
http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=19711

Nordstrom’s & Other’s expand their online offerings
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/260252_nordstrom21.html

Some other traditional retailers in the news to watch are Best Buy, Borders (with their loyalty card online) and Gap. I tend to be biased towards watching Nordstroms probably due to my familiarity of the northwest.

Not sure if this applies to the "big guys". But, in my expereince, operationally, these are the basic areas that I see online retailers (of all sizes) still struggling with:

1) Operational structure to support online channel. WHS, CS, Touchpoints, etc.

2) Merchandising online to support proper product breadth and depth. Backing this up with segmented site design and monetized development goals towards user satisfaction and cvr rates.

3) Integrated channel marketing

Structure-wise I myself have been exposed to several small/med retailers (less than 300 stores and/or less than 15 million online sales) who “wall off” their online operations and make them fend for themselves. Many times these are your typical store centric operations or a hybrid manufacturer/online seller who see the great potential of online sales, but yet don’t see the need to grow/staff a true department that is intertwined with your existing operations. More posts to follow on this one.