Another missed opportunity

Yesterday I touched on some opportunities The Gap missed with the execution of their Cheer Factory campaign. Though I’m in danger of sounding like the Retail Grinch, but this latest hiccup by The Limited is too big for me to disregard.

I’m going to share a secret with you. I buy most of my work pants from The Limited. They have a style of pants that is a perfectly suited for my abnormally high waist and long legs at great prices. They also have some great accessories (love this season’s selection of gloves, scarves and tights) which I often buy as gifts.

Since the launch of their ecommerce site, I do most of my shopping with them online as there isn’t a physical store in New York City…usually. But this holiday season they followed suit with other “non-Manhattan dwelling” retailers and opened a pop-up store in Soho.

Amazing! Except for one thing. I didn’t know about it until after I’d already purchased gifts (that I would’ve bought at The Limited) somewhere else. I’m a Limited card holder and on their email marketing list, so they know I live in NYC and they had two ways of reaching me to promote the pop-up store.

But I found out too late. I wonder how many Manhattanites didn’t know either and spent their money on gifts at one of The Limited’s competitors?

A lose-lose situation for me and Bloomingdale’s

Here goes another rant about poor email marketing execution. I’m a retail strategist and a lover of apparel products. Therefore, I’ve opted-in to about 9,000 retailer email programs. I click on a lot of them and act on a few. But Bloomingdale’s got me at the right place at the right time this weekend with this email about a sale on outerwear.

I love this coat!

See the coat outlined in blue? (click on the link to see it in full view – you love it too, right?) When I saw it I thought I really want this coat! And they’re having a sale of 25 – 40% off outerwear. So I clicked on the coat image in the email.

And guess what? The entire email was one big image that took me to a landing page on Bloomingdales.com about the sale.

What happened to my coat? Why wasn’t I taken straight to that page when I clicked the specific product? I didn’t have the time to wade through the 500+ coats to find the one I wanted, so I abandoned ship.

The next day I remembered that the email indicated that the coat was DKNY. So I looked went back to email, clicked on the link and peeked at the left nav to see if you could filter by designer. Sure enough, it was possible.

EXCEPT – when I clicked on DKNY it took me to the DKNY collection page. Really? But I was on the coat category page!?!?!?! This time I was a little more patient. I scrolled through all of the DKNY products to find the particular coat and learned two things – that the coat was $418 and the sale from the email ended yesterday. Guess who didn’t buy the coat out of principle?

Lessons Learned

• I should be more patient and diligent when shopping online
• Retailers should make it so easy that my patience and diligence aren’t even an issue