Why Digital Commerce Needs To "Go The Final Mile"

By Kurt Heinemann, Chief Marketing Officer, Reflektion

Everyone knows the experience of visiting a traditional brick-and-mortar store is vastly different than visiting an eCommerce site. If you look at the digital experience, it is generally very easy to find the right product if you go into it knowing exactly what you need. There is an endless aisle at your fingertips. Since comparison shopping is so easy, you can usually feel good about pricing. You don’t have to wait in a line to check out. And, pardon the cliché, the whole process can be done in your underwear. Every single one of these digital advantages is a weakness in brick and mortar. Finding the location for a specific product is difficult without getting help, there’s a limited inventory, you can’t always be confident that you’ve found the best deal, you’re forced to wait in a checkout line, and today’s social norms dictate that you should be wearing a pair of pants in the presence of strangers.

But there is a positive characteristic that digital can adopt from good brick and mortar experiences. It’s what very good sales associates do well. They go the final mile by recognizing and responding to each of their customer’s individual intent. This means immediately recognizing the shopper’s style, assessing their needs, and intelligently presenting that individual with the best options.

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