Macy\u2019s<\/a>.
\nThe department store retailer started the year by slashing thousands of jobs and 36 locations, narrowly avoided a massive strike at several New York stores in June before revealing that longtime chief Terry Lundgren would step down in 2017, and then announced 100 more closures in August.<\/p>\nOn top of that, sales continued to slip (by 3.9% in the most recent quarter) and profits are feeling the pinch.<\/p>\n
But while all this was happening, Macy\u2019s was aggressively investing in digital and mobile behind the scenes in order to build a better customer experience across all shopping channels. And according to the latest ranking of department stores\u2019 digital prowess compiled by L2, the investment has paid off.<\/p>\n
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Macy\u2019s is number two on a list of four brands ranked \u201cgenius,\u201d behind Nordstrom but beating Kohl\u2019s and J.C. Penney. On the parent company side of things, Macy\u2019s Inc. (which includes Bloomingdale\u2019s) took the top spot by a wide margin\u2014141 versus Neiman Marcus Group, in second place, at 118.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenius brand Macy\u2019s improved upon its already stellar iOS app by adding in-store messaging capability, along with a redesigned landing page that clearly communicates the benefits of opting-in to location services, push notifications and in-store messaging,\u201d the report said. \u201cBloomingdale\u2019s significantly boosted its mobile site by adding geolocation, dynamic mapping with directions to the nearest store, and mobile-optimized live chat.\u201d<\/p>\n
What makes Macy\u2019s a \u201cgenius\u201d? L2\u2019s report cited how the retailer leveraged its \u201cFashion\u2019s Front Row\u201d event during New York Fashion Week to generate the index\u2019s highest site traffic. In addition, the MyStylist section on the main website allows shoppers to quickly and easily book appointments with personal stylists.<\/p>\n
Bloomingdale\u2019s ranked \u201cgifted,\u201d only one point behind Asos, and L2 noted how its high-quality editorial content aids product discovery, while the ongoing investment in mobile and omnichannel delivers strong online-offline integration.<\/p>\n
Despite nearly three-quarters of indexed brands now providing some form of omnichannel functionality through their brand sites, such as click-and-collect (60 percent), consumer adoption has been slow, largely because of hiccups during pickups.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly, greater investment in the backend as well as expanded training is necessary for the reality of a \u2018frictionless\u2019 customer experience to live up to its full potential,\u201d the report said, adding that expedited fulfillment is also essential if department stores want to survive the next paradigm shift.<\/p>\n
Omnichannel<\/strong><\/p>\nEven though 25 percent of online shoppers in the U.S. and U.K. say they\u2019re interested in using click-and-collect services, only 15 percent and 8 percent of shoppers in those corresponding countries actually do so. That begs the question: invest in the service now or wait until the demand is there?<\/p>\n
While 62 percent of indexed brands now offer click-and-collect, compared with 56 percent a year ago, overall investment in essential omnichannel features has barely budged. In fact, the number of department stores offering an in-store return policy for online purchases is unchanged this year from 2015. Furthermore, J.C. Penney and Kohl\u2019s are the only U.S. brands on the list that enable users to filter find-in-store results.<\/p>\n
\u201cRetailers can reduce the cost of offering omnichannel services by investing more and facilitating a seamless shopping experience across channels,\u201d L2 said. \u201cFurther investment in store configuration, systems and staff training are all needed to ensure that brand omnichannel investments made to this point generate the desired returns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Digital marketing<\/strong><\/p>\nEarlier this year, Google removed text ads from the right side of its desktop search results and announced plans to increase the size of the remaining ones, making the search engine more of an e-commerce platform. These changes, coupled with shifting shopper preferences, present a host of new challenges for retailers. Indeed, average search growth on branded terms, such as Macy\u2019s or Nordstrom, slowed to 1 percent across major markets over the last year, while search volume on non-branded category items (think: cocktail dresses, high heels, lipstick) surged 15 percent.<\/p>\n
In addition, when L2 performed searches on hundreds of non-branded search terms, the group discovered that Nordstrom and Macy\u2019s appeared on 37 percent and 34 percent of first-page results across 611 non-branded queries, respectively. But 74 percent of indexed brands registered less than 10 percent visibility, prompting some to utilize search engine marketing (SEM) to achieve comparable visibility to their peer set. For instance, J.C. Penney uses AdWords to boost its visibility from 10.5% to 30 percent.<\/p>\n
Others turn to email marketing, but most struggle to \u201cstrike the right balance between quality and quantity.\u201d Neiman Marcus, for example, sent nearly four times as many emails per week as the average indexed brand but only achieved a read rate of 15.6%. Rather than resorting to discount-driven subject lines that people are becoming increasingly numb to, L2 suggests department stores take note of Nordstrom\u2019s highly-targeted lifestyle campaigns to facilitate higher open rates.<\/p>\n
When it comes to mobile advertising, which now accounts for more than half of total digital ad spend in the U.S., L2 heralds Macy\u2019s approach. In an effort to strengthen relationships with key partner brands, Macy\u2019s assigns a large portion of its budget to brand-specific ads and generates 14 and 13 times the number of impressions across desktop and mobile, respectively, than the index average.<\/p>\n
Social media<\/strong><\/p>\nNearly 100 percent of indexed brands are present on Facebook, while 91 percent are on Instagram and 95 present are on Twitter. Snapchat is still an experiment (37 percent), but 89 percent appear on YouTube and Pinterest.<\/p>\n
However, when L2 studied total post interactions generated by indexed brands, Instagram commands 69 percent of engagement among department store brands, compared with Facebook\u2019s 29 percent, while Twitter accounts for a mere 2 percent. Given the fact that more than a third of Instagram users admit to using their phones to purchase a product digitally, it\u2019s no surprise to learn that 45 percent of indexed brands have integrated a path to purchase within their profiles on the platform\u2014a substantial jump from 27 percent in 2015\u2014though no one actually says how many sales they\u2019ve generated.<\/p>\n
Mobile<\/strong><\/p>\nAlmost half of online shopping traffic in the first quarter came from smartphones, but 90 percent of consumers still abandon their mobile shopping cart. That being said, 54 percent of shoppers claim to make a mobile purchase at least once a year and 28 percent say they do so once a month, so retailers need to step up their mobile game to boost conversion rates.<\/p>\n
L2 said mobile optimized checkouts with integrated support for expedited payment options, such as PayPayl, Visa Checkout, Masterpass and Amex Express Checkout are key when convincing consumers to purchase.<\/p>\n
Some demographics, such as millennials, prefer shopping on apps versus mobile websites. That\u2019s why 86 percent of indexed brands have at least iOS app and 30 percent have more than one. However, only 63 percent of the department store apps facilitate m-commerce and only 58 percent offer in-app checkout.<\/p>\n
According to the report, best-in-class brand apps (including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Macy\u2019s) \u201care updated frequently, offer a seamless in-app mobile shopping experience, and elevate the in-store experience through timely offers and inventory updates, as well as innovative tools that help the shopper quickly and easily find items.\u201d<\/p>\n
Huangshan Spring Home Textile is a china based waterproof mattress protector manufacturer<\/a>. With more than a decade of producing experience, we\u00a0worked ceaselessly to further our research and developing innovative bedding products, to\u00a0make your business development easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Lyndsay McGregor Posted on October 10, 2016 in Retail 2016 has been a rough ride for Macy\u2019s. The department store retailer started the year by slashing thousands of jobs and 36 locations, narrowly avoided a massive strike at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[41],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springtextile.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}