Despite the incredible evolution of the consumer journey; it is free of pain points, with entire product ranges and financing at the customer’s fingertips. Why is it that so many websites seem to be haunted by a catalog retailer of the past? Can NoChannel provide a solution to common ecommerce pain points?
This article will examine why embracing a NoChannel Philosophy frees the user from being shoehorned into a retailer’s database to browse freely within the available product choices.
The Online Catalog
If we go back a few generations, there was an innovative low-overhead retail model that grew in popularity. By providing a small shopfront with a skeleton staff, customers could browse a retailer’s product line by riffling through a printed catalog. When they ordered, warehouse staff would retrieve the item, and the customer could view it and pay.
This low-overhead retail model blossomed and evolved. Now we have retail giants such as Amazon.com replacing warehouse staff with robots and their e-commerce store now replaces the printed catalog. We have come a long way, so is riffling through a catalog is a thing of the past? Yes? If we have come so far, why does nearly every online retail experience force the consumer to consider where they are in the catalog structure?
Go to Amazon.com and search for “laptop.” You are given an option; laptops in electronics and laptops in computers. Will these different categories provide you with other options? Do you need to search for both? Why is this retailer making an integral part of your consumer journey an attempt to orientate yourself to its catalog?
Is this as good as it gets? Are you to be trained by every marketplace how to search their catalog to find a product?
NoChannel Cataloging
Here at Upstart Commerce, we believe in putting the consumer at the center of the retail journey. So rather than push the inventory management system into your consumer’s experience, we take a different approach. We call this the NoChannel Philosophy.
The evolution of channels in retail arose when, in the early days of online retail, the physical store supported different products than their online store, and often at different prices. This model was rough, and the consumer was aware of the disjointed approach to branding and pricing. As a result, retail evolved and started to provide an integrative consumer journey across these channels. As consumer contact points exploded, the terms multichannel and omnichannel grew to cover contact points from a retail website, to online marketplaces, landing pages, microsites, dealer portals, and all possible marketing opportunities.
The consumer experience has improved with a multichannel or omnichannel mindset to retail and marketing. However, to provide a genuinely-integrative consumer journey the retailer mindset must evolve just one step further; to a NoChannel Philosophy. Every contact point with the consumer must provide the same branded experience, the irrelevant channel of origin. For example, shopping online and returning goods to a physical store, should be a smooth event, and the consumer should never give the slightest thought to stock control issues or how they were refunded.
No Categorization
Building a NoChannel catalog is part of this consumer-centric approach to retail. The traditional catalog structure is irrelevant to the consumer and adds a massive administrative burden to the product managers. Consider the decision a clothing retail must make when adding a T-shirt to a product catalog, should it be: > Clothing > T-shirts > Men’s OR > Clothing > Men’s > T-shirts?
Product managers are forced to create and stick to a rigid hierarchy. This process is entirely unnecessary. Categorizing product data like this is yet another example of unnecessary channeling. There is a better solution, and that is tagging.
Look at the example below:
A T-shirt is added to the database with tags such as: #t-shirt, #mens, #black, #Father’s-day, #Christmas.
Notice the future-proofing that can be done at the product management stage? Now imagine, with NoChannel, you want to create a product set for Father’s Day using the traditional catalog structure. Your product manager would identify those products that could make up a collection, then push it to all your marketplaces. In essence, a new catalog section is created duplicating existing items.. A consumer’s journey involves clicking on the recommended Father’s Day items… and then down the breadcrumb trail they go. What if the consumer does not choose from the suggested items? Do they manage to follow the breadcrumbs back up to the Men’s section and conduct their own search, or have you just channeled them so deep into the database hierarchy, that you have lost them forever?
NoChannel tagging future proofs.
It supports your consumers even when you have no idea what they are looking for. Perhaps Dad has volunteered to support the school play, and he needs to wear black. In the traditional hierarchical system, he would have to navigate through > Clothing > Men’s > T-shirts and search for black items. Then > Clothing > Men’s > Trousers and search for black items again. With tagging, the search for “black” would return all relevant items.
The Future is Consumer-Centric
Retailers are on the cusp of a meaningful step in their evolution of the consumer journey. Analyze carefully how you interact with your consumers. It may be important to your marketing teams to differentiate between your Twitter posts and your dealer portal text, but your consumer does not care. Your blended branding depends on service delivery and brand delivery that is context-free.
The same is true for your product catalog. You are not here to train your consumers how to navigate your product databases. You exist to provide a retail experience that enables your consumers to find and buy the product they want quickly and easily. Dropping the traditional catalog database is part of that evolution. The sooner all channeling fades away from the consumer’s experience, the sooner you provide a truly coherent consumer journey.
UpStart commerce supports online retailers in building NoChannel Platforms to reach their consumers. The technology stack we leverage allows our clients to create a comprehensive and integrated consumer experience. This includes interacting with your product catalog, purchasing online or in-store (with or without finance), shipping and returns, and advanced consumer analytics. We support you so you can provide a truly consumer-centric retail experience.