Article by Philippe BERTRAND, Les Echos
According to OC & C, brands that combine a website and stores are on average more popular than others.
The greater the online presence of a brand, the greater its overall appeal. This is the main finding of the 2014 edition of OC & C Strategy Consultants' survey on the attractiveness of retail chains.
On the face of it, the 2014 rankings highlight the return to favor of Picard, whose image was tarnished last year by the horsemeat lasagne scandal. The frozen-food specialist has regained its status as France's favorite retailer, ahead of Amazon and Yves Rocher. Spartoo. com (+4.3 points) - which did not make it into the Top 30 - also made strong progress, as did Darty (+3.3 points), which was rewarded for the upgrading of its services implemented by its new CEO, Régis Schultz (while FNAC fell back by 1 point), and Ikea, which returned to its usual level after the social scandals that shook it.
For Jean-Daniel Pick, partner at OC & C, two trends also emerge from the survey of 6,000 consumers carried out in June and July: "We note two things that have an impact on the overall rating given to chains: the share of own brands and multi-channel." His colleague Guy-Noël Chatelin points out that, of the 11 criteria rated by the respondents, choice, trust and quality come top, with low prices only in ninth place ("This has become a prerequisite", says the consultant).
Apparent paradox
But overall, networks that sell their own branded products (such as Picard or Ikea) are rated higher than others. In addition, those who develop a multi-channel strategy score better on average (76.8) than chains that only operate stores (70.1), let alone pure e-merchants (65.6). On all criteria, those who combine sales outlets and Internet sites outperform the others.
From this point of view, the fact that those surveyed pass a harsh judgment on the quality of retailer websites (the average score on this precise criterion has dropped by 5 points in one year) is only an apparent paradox. In fact, this only reflects the rise in consumer expectations of site ergonomics and design. From this point of view, even the ratings of pure players like Amazon are falling. A sign that e-merchandising is still in its infancy. One of the criticisms, point out the OC&C consultants, is that retailers often only present part of their offer on the Web.
