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Inside Outdoor | FALL 2020 6 MULTICHANNEL IS THE NEW NORMAL It’s widely expected that the shifts in shopping which accelerated during the worst days of the pandemic will linger into the holiday season. With so many new shopping behaviors created and altered, the thinking goes, some behaviors are going to be sticky and part of a new normal. Online shopping’s share of holiday spending is estimated to as much as double last year’s percentage. That may seem to suggest physical retail is in for a ho-hum holiday; but sizing up retail simply in terms of digital versus physical could mean missing some of the biggest lessons learned during lockdowns. Certainly, behaviors during “unprecedented” disruption are not solid benchmarks for any new normal, but more than anything, limited access to stores acted as a catalyst in the integration of online and offline channels – in other words, the move to multichannel. Indeed, online is no longer distinct from physical, and online transactions could rely on physical stores more than ever before. As high as sales soared this spring for pure-play online retailers, analysis by Global Data suggests retailers that moved quickly to or had some foundation in multi- channel fulfillment – and were allowed to stay open for business – came away with even larger growth rates. Reported second quarter digital and multi-channel sales growth for such retailers as Best Buy, Target, Dick’s, Lowes and Kroger ranged from more than 200 percent to more than 100 percent year over year. Now that American shoppers have tried click-and-collect services such as BOPIS, curbside, quick-delivery and virtual assistance, there’s no turning back. These multi- channel shopping experiences, argue analysts at Global Data, enable consumers to balance availability, safety, convenience, price and immediacy in ways that a channel in a silo simply cannot. “One of the points that is often missed by those who believe the world of shopping will become more dominated by online,” said Global Data analysts, “is the fact that consumers have a wide and varied range of criteria when determining where they shop, and these are best met by shopping across multiple channels.” Moving forward, more than two-thirds of U.S. shoppers expect to utilize “buy online and pickup curbside” more than they did pre-pandemic, show Global Data surveys. About six in 10 said the same about BOPIS, while half said the same about using physical stores to return online purchases. It also should be noted that 70 percent of U.S. shoppers said store closures caused them to reduce non-food spend- ing, despite the online alternatives. According to researchers at Global Data, “a very significant proportion of sales that are attributed to the online channel are, in fact, multichannel sales that rely on both stores and online for success.” The research firm estimates that physical spaces, even in a disrupted year for stores, still will have driven and supported 36 percent of 2020 online non-food purchases. Retailers seem to back this view. Despite the challenges that the pandemic has thrown up, the vast majority (89 percent) of retailers believe that stores will be just as important or more important in driving multichannel sales than they were before the coro- navirus crisis. As a result, most retailers intend to invest more in multichannel capabilities moving forward, including doing more fulfilment from stores (69 percent), offering more curbside pickup (67%) and offering more return options through stores (51 percent). The overly simplistic narratives that “more online sales equal fewer stores” will continue to abound. But retailers with a better understanding of the shopping journey and the critical interplay of channels, Global Data analysts conclude, also will have a better understanding of the assets they need to deploy in order to meet the needs of today’s customers. From the Editor Martin Vilaboy Editor-in-Chief martin@bekabusinessmedia.com Gerald Baldino Managing Editor gerald@bekabusinessmedia.com Percy Zamora Art Director outdoor@bekapublishing.com Rob Schubel Digital Manager marketing@bekabusinessmedia.com Ernest Shiwanov Editor at Large ernest@bekapublishing.com Berge Kaprelian Group Publisher berge@bekabusinessmedia.com Anthony Graffeo Publisher anthony@bekabusinessmedia.com Nazal Parvin Associate Publisher nazal@bekabusinessmedia.com Beka Business Media Berge Kaprelian President and CEO Neil Ende General Counsel Jim Bankes Business Accounting Corporate Headquarters 10115 E Bell Road, Suite 107 - #517 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Voice: 480.503.0770 Fax: 480.503.0990 Email: berge@bekabusinessmedia.com © 2020 Beka Business Media, All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in any form or medium without express written permission of Beka Business Media, is prohibited. Inside Outdoor and the Inside Outdoor logo are trademarks of Beka Business Media