A customer wants something today. A chain with eighty shops sells it, and three of those shops are within a reasonable distance.
The website lists the product and offers delivery in two days. It does not say whether any shop has it, and the store pages have telephone numbers she would have to ring one at a time.
She buys it from a different retailer with next day delivery. The chain had it in two of the three nearby shops, and she was willing to drive there that afternoon.
The first failure: the stock data is not exposed
It exists, in a system, accurately enough to run the business, and it is not connected to the thing customers actually look at.
The second failure: accuracy is used as the reason not to publish
Perfect accuracy is impossible and honest approximation is entirely acceptable, and the fear of being slightly wrong prevents a considerable amount of revenue.
The third failure: the customer is asked to ring round
Which almost nobody does, and which occupies shop staff who are serving people in front of them.
The fourth failure: there is no reservation option
Which would convert the journey with certainty, and which most chains do not offer despite having the systems to do it.
The fifth failure: the nearby stores are not suggested
If one shop does not have it and another does, the customer should be told rather than left to check each one.
The sixth failure: the collection option is buried
Ordering online for collection solves the whole problem and is frequently presented less prominently than delivery.
The seventh failure: the delivery default cannibalises the shops
A customer who would have visited a shop is sold a delivery, which costs more to fulfil and removes every chance of an additional purchase.
The eighth failure: the range differences between stores are invisible
Larger shops carry more, and nothing tells a customer that the nearest shop is the smallest one in the region.
The ninth failure: the enquiry arrives when the shops are closed
Evening browsing about a purchase intended for tomorrow, with nobody available to confirm anything.
The tenth failure: the demand signal is discarded
Which products people looked for near which shops is buying information, and it is not captured anywhere.
The eleventh failure: the opening hours compound it
A customer who establishes a shop has something still needs to know it is open, which is the drift problem in store stock and opening hours questions across a chain.
The twelfth failure: the loss is attributed to online competition
Rather than to the absence of a sentence telling a willing customer that the thing she wanted was fifteen minutes away.
The thirteenth failure: the shop cannot see the rest of the estate either
Staff asked whether another branch has something frequently cannot check quickly, so even a customer who does telephone gets an uncertain answer. The data gap affects the people serving customers as much as the customers themselves.
The fix: answer the branch questions honestly, at any hour
An assistant that answers from the branch and range information you publish, explains how click and collect works, takes the customer's details and the item so the nearest shop can call back to say whether it is in, and gives the opening hours converts the customer who currently buys elsewhere. The branch specific pattern sits in multi store retailers and branch specific questions, the voucher questions in gift card and voucher questions retail chains answer, and the underlying failure in is it in stock the question retail websites fumble. Start at try, see features, and the sector view sits under retail.