DURANGO, Colo. (BRAIN) — Ryan Atkinson, co-owner and president of SmartEtailing.com, sees click-and-collect retail as the opportunity to reconnect consumers to stocking retailers.
“Consumers want the product now and they’re being trained by the Walmarts and Targets of the world,” Atkinson said in a new Channel Mastery podcast episode. SmartEtailing is a specialty bike marketing company that aims to connect IBDs, brands and target consumers across multiple channels,
Atkinson acknowledged that Walmart and Target own their own stores and thus have the advantage of nation-wide logistics to serve consumers. Retail behemoths continue to leverage their inventory position, which is closer to the consumer than Amazon’s fulfillment capabilities, he said.
“Fundamentally, the IBD network has the same thing. We've got the best product distributed across the country close to consumers,” Atkinson said. “The question is how do we use technology to connect those two?”
He said SmartEtailing.com exists to solve this quandary for specialty businesses serving today’s bike consumer. “I think brands and suppliers, they've learned that in order to adapt to the changing needs of a consumer, that they need to have their products available in more places. That's a reality.”
The Channel Mastery podcast with Atkinson is available now. In addition, BRAIN is co-producing a special series of Channel Mastery podcasts that explore the shifting channel landscape in the specialty bike market. The series starts April 15 and will run for a month, featuring two Channel Mastery podcasts a week during that time.
More information at www.channelmastery.com.
