Best Reading of the Day - Entry 0165 Google's Views on Omnichannel

Google Research is out with a couple pretty good pieces: an article and an infographic.

The research article can be found here:

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/3-new-realities-of-local-retail.html

Here is a snippet from that piece:

The relationship between digital and local stores is changing—something we learned from our new Digital Impact on In-Store Shopping study, commissioned from Ipsos MediaCT and Sterling Brands. From it, we identified three new realities of retail: digital drives in-store traffic; smartphones are in-store shopping assistants and varied shopping habits call for a holistic approach to measuring retail success. Savvy retailers are learning how to reach customers by better connecting the online to the offline and by caring less about where a sale happens and more about how to help shoppers convert. Some brands, such as Macy's, REI and Sephora, are already doing so. Find out how.

The infographic can be found in this article:

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/how-digital-connects-shoppers-to-local-stores.html

I see nothing ground breaking here as the summary states what we've mostly come to believe in retail the last couple of years.  The rules have changed and the traditional brick & mortar retailer must change with the changing times.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

PS  For another real-world example of this thinking in action look to Starbucks:
http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/how-starbucks-is-leveraging-mobile-to-drive-holiday-foot-traffic