A simple lesson from Wal Mart
Internet Retailer reports that Wal-Mart.com’s site-to-store service is successful in attracting new customers, with more than 50% of those using the service being first time buyers on the site. This service, which is akin to online ordering for a ‘food takeaway service’, allows shoppers to order online and pick up the items ordered from their nearest Wal-Mart store. It’s a simple concept and is even entirely new, but has made quite an impact for the company [by cutting down on transportation/distribution costs and riding on consumers’ tendency to buy more when they are at the store] as well as to consumers [who save on shipping costs].
Excerpts on how the service has benefited everyone concerned from the article:
Shoppers who have used the Site to Store service often buy additional items when arriving at a store for pickup of the online order. Since the service was launched, Wal-Mart has seen as 20% increase in the number of Site to Store customers who spend an additional $60 or more on in-store purchases, the retailer says.
The service has saved Walmart.com customers $5 million in shipping fees for more than 500,000 products shipped since the service started, Wal-Mart says. By consolidating shipments of online orders to stores instead of to consumers’ addresses, the service has also provided Wal-Mart with more efficient transportation and packaging operations, saving the retailer 1,000 gallons of gasoline each week and 20,000 packing boxes each month, it adds.
I wasn’t really thinking about affiliate marketing when I decided to write this post, but there may be some benefit to affiliates too, with its success in attracting NEW customers. I actually wrote this because I felt there’s a simple lesson for any business- online or offline: there are numerous opportunities and ways business/ sales/ operations can be optimized/ maximized, if we were to only look deeply enough. There is ALMOST ALWAYS a different, new and better way of doing things that can yield better returns at a much lower incremental cost. Can you spot it?
