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Traditional retailers pick up pace with online practices [NJBIZ (NJ)](NJBIZ (NJ) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) In working to compete with Amazon, com and other Internet giants, New Jersey retailers are taking a page from the online playbook. Jerry Fjermestad, a professor of information management at New Jersey Institute of Technology, said the retailers best adapting their brick-and-mortar stores to online pressure use data mining and customer service tools that were originally developed for e-commerce. Retailers are using e-commerce tools to be "able to deal with customers whether they walk in, come in by telephone, by e-mail or through other surveys online. They are building these relationships ... (and) at the same time, they can build knowledge," Fjermestad said. "It's really extending the handshake electronically and personally in the store." Fjermestad said small retailers should follow the lead of larger stores, like Apple, that combine physical and online sales processes. For smaller retailers "it's actually fairly easy to get started and to get a presence out there by building a Web page and by allowing customers, for example, to come in and buy a pizza online," Fjermestad said. "You can get the systems and servers and all you need fairly inexpensively, but it's still a big uphill battle." Traditional consumer companies are also picking up the online pace behind the scenes. For instance, New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson, Fjermestad said, has "been very successful with minimizing their expenses and maximizing their ability to use their supply chain" through the Web. Fjermestad said some of his former students also formed a business based on technology to create more efficiency in delivery and storage of products. Alternately, Fjermestad said online retailers have in return taken a page from the physical retailers. "Electronic commerce has it down to being able to sell impulse items," Fjermestad said. "Now, you can see these things as you exit or enter the system. I think it's just fantastic what they can do with that." E-mail to: [email protected] On Twitter: @MCaliendo33 (c) 2012 Journal Publications Inc. |