When Chuck Williams invented the concept of a store for cooking fanatics in 1975 — Williams Sonoma — he probably never saw this coming. But today, his eponymous store chain could care less whether you come into their stores or not. Really? Can that be true?
For the first time in 2014, more than half of Williams-Sonoma sales came online; the first significant brick & mortar retailer to hit that mark. Moreover, a Kantor Retail analysis suggest their e-commerce business is more profitable. But the real show stopper was this: Despite hitting this benchmark, Williams-Sonoma was able to boost retail store sales by 2.4%. What’s this? A retail, hands on, fashion forward business growing both in bricks and clicks? That’s the model for OmniChannel retailing, where the business serves customers wherever they want to buy — rather than through the channels the retailer started out in or thinks of a “theirs”.
Source: Home World Business, September 14, 2015
PHOTO NEEDED: WIlliams-Sonoma store/logo