Consistent double-digit compound growth rates in ecommerce sales, coupled with ever increasing use of the Internet as a tool for product research and discovery has made a strong web presence a retailing necessity. Most important, until now consumers who shopped across multiple channels – in stores, on the internet and through call centers – were more profitable to a majority of retailers. This year, however, we found the profitability of multi-channel customers is declining. While today’s multi-channel customer is certainly not LESS profitable than her single-channel counterpart, retailers are finding that multi-channel retailing is simply becoming a cost of doing business.

The declining profitability of the multi-channel customer has led retailers to face a reality they have been avoiding: that they can no longer “brute their way” to cross-channel consistency and still be profitable. Retailers recognize the need to become more efficient and effective in their multi-channel businesses. At the same time, they remain challenged to improve customer service and satisfaction – the retail world is more competitive than ever.