PC World: Have you ever heard of Multichannel Retailing?

I know they have, but I think they missed the point.

So what am I talking about? Well, love them or hate them, PC World is one of the most successful computer retailers in the UK. They even have a website.

Now one of the problems with selling on the web as a high street retailer, is how do you compete with the web pricing which is generally lower because of reduced overheads? PC World's solution is straightforward, offer web based prices online and allow customers to pick up the products in the store. Fantastic!

Now consider this, I needed to purchase an ADSL2+ router. By reserving it online and picking it up in the store I could save £30 on a £200 router. Not bad. Process works pretty well too and I reserved it and went into the store to pick it up. Well, while I was there I thought I would browse around and see what was new. Then, I realised that I could do with putting some extra RAM into one of my machines. They had it in stock and it was on the shelf. I was just about to pick it up and I thought "But I wonder how much cheaper this would be if I reserved it online and picked it up in the store?"

Mmm....using the browser on my mobile phone, I could see it was £5 cheaper (a 25% saving!). Quite a few keystrokes later, I managed to reserve it. Using such a small screen is a real challenge. As I stood in the store (still browsing memory), I was tapped on the shoulder and sales assistant said "Excuse me, can I just pick up one of these?". He reached over and picked up the memory card that I was interested in. Eh? What's going on here? I followed him back to his "Customer Service" counter. "Has a customer reserved that memory?" I asked. He nodded. "So, let me guess the customer's name!"

He was almost as impressed as me. And I saved £5 too!

Now, "Collect in Store" is a a great ideato drive customers from online world into the Store. It is great for transactional based sales, but absolutely hopeless for in-store browsing. In fact, the process which encourages customers into the Store, then actively disincentives them to browse when they are there!