Exclusive: Kohl’s pursues maximum engagement with Oracle Retail
If you’re going to create an agenda, it may as well be an ambitious one. And the “Greatness Agenda” being pursued by Kohl’s Corp. is certainly ambitious.
“Our strategy is to be the most engaging retailer in the U.S.,” Janet Schalk, executive VP and CIO og Kohl’s, explained during an exclusive interview with Chain Store Age at the recent NRF 2015 Annual Convention & Expo in New York. “The Greatness Agenda involves initiatives across the spectrum – some front-end and some enabling.”
To support advanced customer engagement, Kohl’s relies on a variety of Oracle Retail solutions. In 2013, Kohl’s began the process by implementing an Oracle Retail platform and e-commerce engine, along with associated solutions like a customer contact application. The retailer, which was an existing Oracle merchandising client at the time, then started building its omnichannel customer experience on this systems base.
“We have an advantage pure-play retailers don’t have,” explained Schalk. “We have a digital presence and can also leverage 1,100-plus stores, as well as our digital channels, to create a great shopping experience. Convenience used to be easily getting in and out of the parking lot. Now it’s ‘how can I shop from the couch.’ “
As part of its Greatness Agenda, Kohl’s seeks to provide customers with a convenient experience regardless of what channels they use, including if they start with one channel and finish with another. Fortunately, Kohl’s stores offer the potential of serving as 1,100 fulfillment nodes.
“From a systems standpoint, fulfilling from stores is a lot of work,” noted Schalk.
To that end, Kohl’s took its “typical portfolio” of Oracle merchandising solutions and added inventory, purchase order and pricing modules during a one-year rollout in 2014. And in the next year, Kohl’s will roll out Oracle asset planning and management, smart clustering and possibly price optimization technology.
The company is currently shipping online deliveries from hundreds of stores, as well as its four fulfillment centers, and is finding that on average, deliveries from stores arrive a day faster. Kohl’s also experimented with same-day delivery during the 2014 holiday season in four markets and is reviewing results.
In addition, the chain is developing near-real-time inventory availability so that customers will be able to see what products are available from their own devices. Currently, a subset of Kohl’s stores that serve as fulfillment centers also let associates check for availability of out-of-stocks, and the retailer is building the capability for customers to reserve those items.
Other omnichannel customer engagement activities include the rollout of in-store pickup of online purchases in 100 stores during fall 2014, with chainwide rollout planned for the first half of this year.
“We’ve gotten great kudos about in-store pickup for its customer convenience,” Schalk said. “We’ve also gotten encouraging results in attachment sales. We’re doing reserved parking spots, but currently no curbside pickup.”
Other technology-related Greatness Agenda goals Kohl’s is working toward and testing include localized assortments, customer segmentation and personalization, and mobile loyalty. Kohl’s is also piloting the use of beacons to provide time- and location-sensitive product data in 22 stores. Schalk neatly summarized the reality behind Kohl’s customer engagement efforts.
“We have to be nimble and responsive to the changing needs of our audience,” she stated.