Omnichannel & Pureplay Collaboration; Commerce Marketing Growth; COVID-19 Concessions

By Cleveland Admin

In our latest benchmark research on team collaboration, an increasing number of brands are connecting their Amazon teams with their omnichannel teams. This is because emerging omnichannel retailers often model their digital business and strategies after Amazon. About half of these brands hold meetings monthly or more between these two groups suggesting that there is likely an opportunity to improve collaboration. It’s also important to come to the eCommerce (and total retail) market with a holistic strategy. An eCommerce Center of Excellence (CoE) team is one way to foster cross-functional collaboration, and our benchmark shows 42% of brands have an eCommerce CoE, including 47% of eCommerce brands with more advanced digital strategies.

Omnichannel Concessions due to COVID-19: While the outlook for online demand in ’21 is quite positive, brands are beginning to see greater profitability pressure from their omnichannel customers and they expect that to continue into 2021. In our latest supplier benchmark, 52% of brands reported that their omnichannel customers have reached out in the last three months seeking concessions specifically as a result of increased costs tied to the pandemic, with Walmart and Target being the most common examples. Digital marketing spend and increases to co-op-like spend are where brands are most frequently seeing “asks.”