For years, retail has clumsily struggled with various merged channel strategies. No changes in commission structure or bonus requirements have proved effective at getting chains to not prioritize in-store compared with e-commerce sales. There is simply too much bad history here.

But what is odd is watching retailers adding barriers in an attempt to differentiate mobile sales versus laptop/desktop sales — although they would probably label the differences as between mobile and e-commerce, as though mobile isn’t part of e-commerce. That’s the real problem.

I’m half-expecting chains to start separating purchases that came through Android devices versus iOS. For that matter, why not separate Samsung Android purchases versus Motorola Android? It makes just about as much sense.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here