Maximum engagement
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 that.
“Our strategy is to be the most engaging retailer in the U.S.,” Janet Schalk, executive VP and CIO of Kohl’s, explained during an interview with Chain Store Age. “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 solutions from Oracle Retail. 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. Kohl’s, 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,” Schalk said. “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 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, the chain’s stores offer the potential of serving as 1,100 fulfillment nodes.
“From a systems standpoint, fulfilling from stores is a lot of work,” Schalk added.
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. In 2015, Kohl’s is scheduled to roll out Oracle asset planning and management, smart clustering and possibly price optimization technology.
Reaching across channels
Kohl’s is currently shipping online deliveries from hundreds of stores, as well as from its four fulfillment centers. It is finding that, on average, deliveries from stores arrive a day faster. The retailer also experimented with same-day delivery during the 2014 holiday season in four markets and is reviewing results.
Kohl’s is also developing near-real-time inventory availability so that customers will be able to use their own devices to see what products are available. Currently, a subset of 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.”
In other technology-related goals of its strategy, Kohl’s is working toward and testing localized assortments, customer segmentation and personalization, and mobile loyalty.
“Technology is bringing loyalty to life,” Schalk explained. “In some markets we’re testing the capability for customers to track how many loyalty points they are accruing and how much Kohl’s cash they have available in their mobile wallets.”
The retailer 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 said.