Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Why is it that the more retail execs applaud the brilliance of a merged-channel strategy, the more chains roll out everything but? Michelle Tinsley, director of transactional retail at Intel, thinks she’s figured it out. It really is just a matter of culture.

“There is a lot of infrastructure and culture built around today’s model of doing retail, which—unfortunately—is still historically a brick-and-mortar type of model. So your incentive plans, your enterprise systems, all are gauged toward a brick-and-mortar. In the last five to 10 years, we’ve added onto that an online capability. But it’s very much bolted on,” Tinsley said. “Even organizational structures have the online version of the store competing with the brick-and-mortar.” Tinsley was a guest this week on StorefrontBacktalk Radio, where she discussed ways to push merged-channel strategies that will actually get them deployed.