It is no longer accurate to describe the Internet as a single channel within a multi-channel paradigm. The Internet has gone hyper and there are now thousands of channels to target and manage. 

Traditional, multi-channel strategies include an integrated approach to brick-and-mortar retail, catalogue, and e-commerce with minimal emphasis on kiosk and mobile applications. A channel is any opportunity that necessitates or benefits by the deployment of a microsite. The term hyper as opposed to multi is more reflective of the scale and speed with which channels are conceived, evolved and managed.

 

Hyper-Channel e-commerce™ is the ability to actively manage thousands of channels using a unified, microsite-enabled platform that seamlessly integrates best-in-class analytics, e-commerce, online merchandising and segment-driven navigation solutions. Novator’s partnerships with Mercado Software, Omniture and Channel Intelligence are specifically designed to capitalize on the Hyper-Channel e-commerce™ opportunity. By integrating Virtual Retailer with our partner’s offerings, we offer more power to retailers than any other platform on the market.

The evolution of e-commerce
Building, managing, analyzing and optimizing microsites will become the key to unlocking Hyper-Channel e-commerce™. Microsites are created for different channel opportunities with customer experiences, product mixes, pricing and promotions that resonate with the target audience.

Why are retailers challenged to optimize Hyper-Channel?
	Broad audience reach with a meaningful customer experience per mircrosite is a daunting task, both in terms of effort, technology and cost. Building, managing, analyzing and optimizing microsites is beyond even the most advanced e-commerce platforms.
	Reaching a broad audience means retailers need to understand all possibilities for connecting with their target audience in a way that optimizes ROI. This requires the ability to not only effectively feed information to the channels (e.g., shopping comparison engines, search or auction sites) and build microsites to capture the targeted inbound traffic, but also to understand and analyze effectiveness across a complex system and make changes.
	Most retailers focus on traditional methods for reaching their audience (email marketing, affiliate management, SEM, SEO, etc.) because it’s safe. The fact is, their user experience is the same regardless of the method used to reach the customer; personalization is superficial, and generally, loyalty is eroding while consumer expectations are increasing.
	Retailers do not have the necessary skills, capacity or e-commerce platforms to truly optimize channels. Too few personnel are managing too few channels.
	Retailers must fund each initiative with more personnel, adding increased complexity to their operations and possibly using different solutions for each new opportunity. This model doesn’t scale and has no justifiable ROI.