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In 2018, Nick Molnar, the founder of the Australia-based online payment service Afterpay began its expansion to the U.S. market. The service had gained a loyal following in Australia by enabling customers to pay for online purchases through four interest-free installments. Customer advocacy and the brand's ability to improve customer acquisition for its retail partners had contributed to strong network effects, leading to rapid growth. In the United States, however, competitors were abundant, the regulatory environment was unfamiliar, brand awareness was lacking and retailers were seeking to partner with service providers capable of supporting an omnichannel experience. This new set of challenges required Afterpay to reevaluate its strategy: should the company fast-track the rollout of its offline offering in the United States or was it prudent to wait to acquire a larger customer base to justify the capital expenditure and operational changes this would require?

At a time when many traditional retailers are closing their physical stores, digitally native vertical brands such as Bonobos, which specializes in men's apparel, and Warby Parker, which specializes in eyeglasses, are aggressively expanding into offline locations. In this article, the authors explore two related trends: (1) the expansion of online-first retailers into offline stores that "supercharge"customer value and (2) the transformation of stores run by traditional, offline-first retailers from fulfillment-dominant centers into experience-dominant centers. As authors David R. Bell, Santiago Gallino, and Antonio Moreno note, as digitally native vertical brands have learned to build relationships with customers, traditional retailers have been reducing their store sizes and inventories and are attempting to improve and elevate the customer experience. "Showroom experiences," they write, "create better customers." When customers are exposed to the brand in a showroom, "they are better able to resolve any uncertainty about the nondigital attributes of the retailer's product."Similarly, the authors say, "showrooms create better retailers: When customers are physically present in the retail environment, observation of their behaviors can lead to meaningful insights." The authors developed their early insights into what customers value while working closely with Bonobos and Warby Parker. Through simulations, they saw that stores with smaller footprints and a higher level of service led to better results economically -improved margins, smoother logistics, and better control of inventory. They found that, rather than being dead, physical retail stores were very much alive with a profound shift in focus -from fulfillment to experience-oriented environments. The authors conclude that online-first retailers and traditional retailers have something to learn from each other.

This is an MIT Sloan Management Review article. Customers are increasingly "omnichannel"-deploying both online and offline channels -in their thinking and behavior. In order to win in this new environment, sellers also must be omnichannel. That means having explicit strategies for the two core channel functions -provision of information about products and product fulfillment -and offering the right combination of experiences for their customers. The authors have developed a customer-focused framework for delivering these strategies, drawing on empirical research conducted with both offline-first retailers like Crate & Barrel and online first retailers like Warby Parker. Traditional, or offline-first, retailers need to leverage the online channel not only for fulfillment but also as a venue for delivering price, inventory and other information desired by customers. Using data from a natural experiment conducted at Crate & Barrel, a retailer of furnishings and housewares, the authors show that by providing accurate price and inventory information online, a traditional retailer can significantly increase sales and traffic to offline stores. Similarly, New York-based Warby Parker, an eyeglasses retailer that started out selling online, sells products with tactile features that some customers want to experience offline. The authors describe how Warby Parker has experienced significant benefits by developing an offline presence. For Warby Parker, offline showrooms that provide product inventory for customers to sample drive increased sales through the online channel. Furthermore, the authors note, when online-first retailers develop offline channels to deliver information, this allows customers to sort more appropriately into the channel that best suits them.