Has a multichannel attitude arrived on the selling floor?

Pfreemanevans | April 30, 2007, 05:50 PM

My husband and I were shopping in a Banana Republic looking for trousers for him. He is an odd size and we have regular difficulty finding the right clothes for him. As we feared the store didn’t have his size in stock. But, the sales woman told us that the online store might have our size. I asked if she could look it up for us from the store. She said yes and did so. It turns out the web store did have our size and it was in stock. I asked if the sales woman could order it from the web store right there in the store. She asked her manager who frowned and said she could. Not a very enthusiastic answer, but a yes nevertheless. Then I asked if I would have to pay for shipping since I was in the store and they didn’t have my size. They said I would have to pay. I forgot to ask if they could order the item from the web to ship to store for me to pick up. We decided not to buy and went home trouser-less.

The upshot of this experience for me was overall very, very positive and the store almost saved a sale. Plus, I will remember that the store has this capability and will be more likely to go ask for my husband’s odd size next time rather than being disappointed and walking out. And, I will be more likely to try the website in the future now that we know they have my husband’s size. The tools to help a customer across channels are in place at Banana Republic. and the store staff is helpful. But when it comes to actually placing an order via the web, in store there is hesitation on both sides -- I don't want to pay to have something shipped if I was in the store and the manager clearly wasn't that interested in placing a web order for me. It seems likely that the old bugaboos of organization and compensation might still be standing in the way of fully servicing the customer. Was the store manager concerned that she would not get credit for the sale? Did she not want the service hassle if I didn't get the order on time once she placed it? Hard to say, but it seems like the easy part is done, now we need focus on herding the store cats to be more on board with a corporate multichannel vision. Sounds like retail as usual....