Protecting your brand in a world of multiplesAndy Houghton, e-commerce director at Unilever, talks about the challenges facing brands and retailers in a cross channel world
Multi-channel retail is not a new concept. Indeed, it could be argued that once shops started taking orders for collection or delivery over the phone, they had become multi-channel retailers. Things have moved on since then, and now multi, or cross, channel retailing includes bricks and mortar, telesales, indirect, online and, increasingly, mobile.
These different ways of selling are obviously a huge opportunity for brands and retailers – the Centre of Retail Research says that online, including mobile, accounted for 10.7 per cent of retail trade in the UK in 2010, and that figure is set to continue growing, with eBay predicting that mobile commerce alone will be worth £13bn by 2021.