Today I received an email from gap.com promoting their new multi-store website. Now I don’t know how long this has been out there, but it struck me as an ingenious way to spread the cost of 4 branded websites across one platform through the use of navigation tags at the top of the home page(s). I can imagine it took some serious whacks with a management club to get the individual e-commerce guys to buy in, but buy in they did.
The deal is that if you buy from Gap – or Banana Republic – or Piperlime – or Old Navy – one some or all – you can put all items in one shopping cart, pay a flat $7 shipping charge and have a nice day. The offer is not valid in stores, only online. This week, through 5/31, there is an online code for Free Shipping as well.
Finally, all online sales can be returned free, with a postage paid label in each shipment. The online sales policy is pretty straight forward. Having run a maternity clothing company, I can assure you this is a big deal for women who have no idea what size they are and, as a new mom, are dealing with much more significant issues than negotiating a return.
As always, let’s watch the quarterly sales results to see if enough brand cross-selling results.
When I worked at a Fortune 200 company, we had a project with similar intent. One shopping cart, 1 mall. Each of our brands would have it’s own store, by that I mean e-commerce catalog, or more precisely a sub-set of the master catalog for their store, that you could browse and add items to the cart, one cart.
The idea was right, the audience was wrong. The brands were segmented enough that one visitor would not necessarily jump to the next brand (store) because the products didn’t fit that segment. Like I said, the technology could handle the intent, it was just the wrong company to try it with.
Comment by Tim Rueb — May 27, 2008 @ 12:25 pm |
Tom – I heard about this as well. Steve and I wondered if this strategy might hurt the Banana Republic Brand, as it is the highest priced, but has some similar core products. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Comment by Kathy Elkins — May 30, 2008 @ 5:45 pm |
I was also thinking that if between the four stores there was enough of an overlap in price point, and segmentation, then you would have the ability to to attempt cross-sell or up-sell, but I would think you would create a new virtual store (co-branded) unique to the physical stores that would justify inventory being shown from four physical stores.
Same master catalog, but the ability to define impulse, cross-sell and up-sell within the customer behavior rules, regardless of brand. As apposed to defining these rules solely within each brand.
Comment by Tim Rueb — May 30, 2008 @ 8:09 pm |