The rise of unified retail has been transforming physical stores. They are becoming “Swiss Army knives” as new functions and new jobs emerged. At the same time, stores rental costs are the main charge for a P&L of retailers. As footfall has been falling and e-commerce has been gaining market share, evaluating their performance has become increasingly tricky.
How to allocate and reward for online sales? After almost a decade of discussions, this question jumped to the top of the pile in a Covid context – how should retailers integrate online sales into the stores’ business? What about returns? In the U.S.A., an anonymous luxury fashion retailer said they apply the following rule: when the origin of the sale is offline, the turnover is assigned to the store even if the product is delivered afterwards.