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MetaPack approach to multi-channel logistics

Multi-channel logistics underpins a true multi-channel offering.   Today’s shoppers want to browse and buy the widest range of products that a merchant can offer from any point-of-order, for example, store, internet or catalogue.  At the same time the customer must experience consistent and high levels of service with maximum convenience. MetaPack delivery management solutions make a significant contribution to this reality.

MetaPack delivery management solutions ensure that the customer is given a full range of delivery options at point of order, taking into account real time, the shopping basket contents and where the recipient lives or works. The customer might be shopping in the store, through a catalogue and call centre, or on-line. Using MetaPack the experience is always the same. MetaPack provides one point of integration to all UK delivery solutions (including fifteen carriers) to meet the complex demands of multi-channel retailing. We guarantee that the appropriate delivery experience is automatically selected for every consignment, based on carrier expertise, price, service or all combined.  This delivery service could be to the home, to work, an alternative collection point or international. This makes for a consistent service regardless of where the product is shipped from: it could be direct from the supplier, from the shipper’s warehouse or its store.  MetaPack provides all of the tracking data for any number of carriers to any internet screen, again whether it is for the customer care team, supplier or direct to the customer. We enable the retailer to look after all of their customer communication. Use MetaPack to quickly set up email or SMS messages with the customer to keep them constantly updated as to the parcel’s status, so that there is one last mile experience, regardless of which carrier(s) are used. And you can return in any number of ways.

MetaPack helps retailers and carriers to provide customers with the best delivery experience. Attracting customers to the store, website or catalogue is an expensive business. We help to ensure that those customers come back to buy more. There is a positive coincidence between best service and lowest cost. Getting things right first time is a major benefit for the retailer, the carrier and the customer. This can be achieved using MetaPack in a multi-channel environment.

Q&A with Patrick Wall

In your experience, do most multichannel retailers do enough to make their logistics work for them over the variety of channels they have to market?
True multichannel retailing will be a joy for shoppers but unfortunately we still seem to be a long way off. Too often customers are forced to shop in distinct, unconnected channels, when they really want  consistent experience: whether they are in a store, on-line, browsing their catalogue, talking to customer service or on their mobile. There is only a gradual realisation amongst retailers that logistics is the key to providing this  true multichannel experience.  The majority of retailers are yet to frame the demanding questions that are required for multichannel, so understandably, it will be a long time before they really make logistics work for them and their customers.

Is there a significant problem for retailers in this area – and what are its effects?
The majority of retailers have rigid logistics systems that are exclusively responsive to distinct buying channels. A customer orders on-line and one logistics network responds. A customer shops in store or orders in store, and another network responds. Logistics for different shopping channels are typically mutually exclusive. So when the retailer wants to move on and provide a joined up experience to their customers there are huge barriers: separate warehouses, different technical systems, separate organization structures. Most retailers are therefore moving into the multichannel world with inefficient and costly work arounds which limit the customers experience. The customer faces restricted product choice, restricted delivery and restricted customer service according to their shopping location or the “shop window” they use (store, on-line, contact centre, catalogue, mobile etc).

What strategies can they use to overcome it? – and how do you know if it’s working?
Since too many retailers, including those still coming on-line, have build distinct online and offline businesses the solution must be for the retailer to go back and  take a look at the business from the customers’ stand point. The multichannel strategy has to start with a definition of the ideal customer experience and work back from this point. Not everything needs to be achieved overnight, even rapid transformation is best achieved in stages.  But it is essential to know where the business is headed in the long term.  A blue print can then be devised which provides the desired customer proposition at the acceptable cost. Logistics must overcome all the barriers that currently restricts the multichannel  experience. Such an approach is likely to place new requirements on the business. Perspectives and emphasis have to change. It’s all very well putting product in multiple “shop windows” and deploying huge resource to get customers along to browse, but the underlying foundations of the business have to support this increasingly complex range of “windows”. This has many implications for logistics: for stock holding, warehouse and distribution centre organization, technical architectures, inbound and outbound delivery and increasingly, the role of suppliers.

Once a retailer is implementing a joined up logistics strategy the signs of success are easy to see. The more successful multichannel retailers have flexible access to their stock and less stock duplication. There is greater visibility throughout the supply chain. This visibility is used to aid stock management, manage range breadth and access and to respond in real time to customer needs. A successful multichannel strategy leads to reduced cost and increased service levels: the objective everyone is trying to achieve.

What business and competitive advantages do you see retailers gaining by sorting out their logistics in this way?
Sort the logistics foundations out and the rest will follow. There are few competitive advantages that can be maintained for long. A huge amount of retailing tactics are about fast following the competition, whether its product design, store layouts or using the best supplier for search navigation. However, organizing the underlying logistics of the business in the appropriate manner can create a competitive advantage that can be sustained for a long time. It enables a retailer to respond to customer needs and the increasingly complex and sophisticated ways that people shop. With the right response, average shopping basket size increases, along with greater customer loyalty.

What is your blue-sky vision of how logistics could work for multichannel retailers?
The old Martini adage has been over used over the last ten years but “anytime, anyplace, anywhere” is now becoming a realistic proposition. Multichannel does not stop at providing collect-at-store facilities.  Multichannel permits the shopper to behave as they wish and never to be disappointed. Logistics makes this possible by combing multiple shopping “windows”, with multiple stock locations and multiple transportation systems, to provide one consistent customer experience.  Regardless of how or where a customer browses, specifies or purchases, an appropriate logistics structure can ensure that the customers’  needs are met at the lowest cost that is consistent with a perfect service. And a perfect service is not an expensive extra. Achieving things right first time not only keeps the customer satisfied, it also provides the lowest cost to serve. Perfect service reduces customer complaints, perfect services reduces returns. It also keeps the customer coming back for more.

Patrick Wall
CEO
MetaPack
July 2009