Q&A with Jerry RIghtmer,
President, Starmount Systems
In this exclusive Q&A with Retail TouchPoints, Jerry Rightmer, President of Starmount Systems, shares his view of the current cross-channel marketplace and his advice for retailers.
Retail TouchPoints: How has the convergence of shopping channels changed the retail shopping experience – for shoppers and for retailers?
Jerry Rightmer: I believe the biggest change has come in the role of the store in the consumer’s shopping process. Before multiple shopping channels existed, the entirety of the shopping process happened in the store. With multiple channels, the shopping process has spilled out of the store. The store still has a strong role to play in the process, but the degree of channel convergence achieved by retailers will determine how well the store fulfills its role, and ultimately how consumers view the overall experience.
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RTP: How have consumer expectations of retailers changed (regarding product availability, pricing, promotions, other)?
Rightmer: The bar has been raised for retail execution in the eyes of the consumer. Retailers have upgraded their merchandising, planning and supply chain systems to ensure the right products are in the right place at the right price — for the store. The shopping process doesn’t necessarily begin and end in the store, so more is expected by consumers to support the way they shop. The tools and information a consumer can use to make a purchase decision are much greater online than in the store. Until the richness of the online experience is available to shoppers and sales associates in the store, the shopping process will be unsatisfactory for most consumers.
RTP: What do you attribute the change in consumer expectations to (increased access to mobile technology, social media, economic concerns, other)?
Rightmer: All of the above. Online shopping trained consumers to expect more from retailers — more information, more competitive pricing and better personalization. Social media channels allow consumers to go beyond institutionalized information channels to get information and recommendations from a scalable network of “advisors.” All of these capabilities are now available to consumers on their mobile devices and therefore in the store. Consumers expect retailers to keep pace with these changes, not fight them.
RTP: What can retailers do to respond to changing consumer expectations in order to improve loyalty and increase basket size?
Rightmer: Retailers can equip their sales associates and their consumers with mobile tools and applications that bridge the gap between the online and the offline shopping experience. Those tools and applications must be backed with omni-channel systems accessible from all channels to provide consistent information about products and consumers. Recognizing consumers across all channels and giving them the best capabilities from any channel will enable time-starved consumers to easily navigate your brand, make satisfying buying decisions and increase the probability that they will buy more and buy more often.
RTP: How has the convergence of shopping channels changed the overall retail landscape (retailers selling a greater variety of products, downsizing store footprints, other)?
Rightmer: The convergence of shopping channels is one of the major market pressures forcing retailers to carefully evaluate their competitive strategy. Competing on price or assortment is difficult in today’s shopping environment. Convenience, service and experience are the dimensions retailers must leverage with their offline presence.
RTP: What steps can retailers take to better compete in this increasingly competitive marketplace (improve supply chain efficiencies, implement mobile technology, improve marketing effectiveness, improve product assortments, update the POS, other)?
Rightmer: There’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy, but many retailers face the same challenges. The core of their organization and IT infrastructure is rigidly setup around a product-centric, channel-specific business. A customer-centric, omni-channel retailer will need open systems to collect and provide information across all channels and an enterprise architecture that allows business processes to execute smoothly and supports continuous change. Mobile retail is the catalyst that will drive much of this change, since mobile retailing is inherently omni-channel.
RTP: What are some of the technical hurdles retailers face when merging channels? How can they overcome these challenges?
Rightmer: Many of the systems currently used by retailers to serve customers in a channel are designed specifically for a single channel. Merging channels effectively requires a tiered enterprise architecture with common capabilities at the center and channel solutions at the edge. Right now, most retailers don’t have a common set of services at the core of their enterprise that can serve information or provide common capabilities to systems running in more than one channel. Adopting standards-based omni-channel services for common customer-facing capabilities is the best way to address this issue. Examples of common retail services include product lookup and search, customer account management, and shopping cart services including price, promotion and taxation capabilities.
RTP: What are some of the pitfalls retailers should be careful to avoid when merging channels?
Rightmer: The common trap retailers fall into with any shift in the landscape is making short-term decisions that only address the immediate problem they face today. The business and technical challenges presented by merging channels can’t be effectively addressed with tactical solutions. Retailers need a strategy and roadmap to make the series of decisions and changes required to get from their current state to the future.
RTP: Do the challenges related to merging channels vary for different retail segments? If yes, please explain.
Rightmer: Yes. We see big differences between retail models that provide a full-service shopping environment (fashion apparel, for example) and retail models designed around a self-serve model. The type of information and the delivery channel is different for each. If you are a mass-merchant, competing on price and efficiency, then equipping your customer with shopping tools that provide across channels is very important. If you rely on a personalized shopping experience, then equipping your sales associates with better tools is more important. The data required to drive the merged channel experience is also different. For mass-merchants, product information — including ratings, reviews, pricing and rich product descriptions — can be very important. For a fashion retailer, the customer information you track and use to personalized the shopping experience may be more important.
RTP: Can you share some examples of retail companies that have successfully merged channels?
Rightmer: I don’t believe anyone has completely merged their channels, but all of our customers have selected strategic differentiators in their customer engagement models and merged those specific capabilities to leverage their presence across multiple channels. Urban Outfitters is using mobile solutions to blur the lines between physical and virtual shopping channels, and Pep Boys allows customers to schedule appointments in the store from their web site (think Apple Genius Bar) to streamline the service experience. You will soon see more merged channel capabilities coming from our customers, and their investments will continue to be focused on creating an engaging, differentiated shopping experience across their brand.
Jerry Rightmer is President of Starmount Systems. He has nearly 20 years of experience in envisioning, designing, and developing retail technology solutions. He joined Starmount in 2010. As President, Rightmer oversees Starmount’s product vision and technology strategy. He provides strategic guidance to Starmount’s product management and R&D teams, while maintaining a focus on customer-centric technologies for a variety of segments. During Rightmer’s tenure in retail system development, he has worked with a number of department store, mass merchant, specialty and e-commerce retailers. Most recently, Rightmer served as the Vice President of Retail Application Strategy for Oracle. Prior to Oracle, Rightmer was the Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer and co-Founder of 360Commerce.