Katie Grisko has served in a variety of marketing, project and product-management roles in the 10 years she has worked at Petco. Currently working on the ecommerce team, she conducts research, develops digital strategies and cultivates vendor relationships that inform the company’s ecommerce and mobile commerce plans. She spoke with eMarketer’s Tobi Elkin about Petco’s new mobile website, which offers video product demos, product images, tie-ins with Facebook and Twitter, customer ratings and reviews, and the mobile channel’s role in the business.
eMarketer: Petco recently launched a fully enabled mobile website. Do you consider mobile part of the ecommerce channel?
Katie Grisko: Mobile is definitely part of an integrated strategy. We look at everything in mobile under the overall umbrella of ecommerce and how it interacts both with Petco.com and our customers in the stores. It’s a core part of our multichannel or omni-channel strategy.
eMarketer: Some retailers struggle with whether to build apps or develop a mobile website or both. Petco doesn’t have an app. Why did you decide to go with a full-on mobile website?
Grisko: It seemed like it was a good baseline to see what our current customer base does on a mobile site, the features and functions they find useful, how they interact with it and how it assists them as a tool, even when they’re in one of our physical stores. We decided to start there and then to map out an app strategy. We want to make sure we’re providing apps that have a specific purpose and are going to serve the needs of our customers, not just what we may think is fun or interesting.
“Certainly apps have an allure.... But we kept coming back to the question, when the customer interacts with this, where are we going to drive them? It just seemed that we needed the mobile site before we put any other components into place.”Grisko: For us, it’s more about creating a destination. Certainly apps have an allure and sometimes it’s a little easier to develop an app than to develop a fully enabled mobile site. But we kept coming back to the question, when the customer interacts with this, where are we going to drive them? It just seemed that we needed the mobile site before we put any other components into place.
eMarketer: What percentage of your online customers are coming to Petco through the mobile channel?
Grisko: Approximately 8% to 10% of our online customers during any given month are coming to us on a mobile device. We’ve seen that grow month over month and it was one of the drivers for us to launch a mobile site.
eMarketer: What features are customers engaging with on your mobile site?
Grisko: We know that a lot of people are using the store locator. Either they’re actually looking for directions or they’re simply looking for the phone number of a store because they are out and about. They’re looking to check on store hours, to make a grooming appointment or to see whether an item’s in stock—we really want to provide the convenience of mobile shopping to our customers. People are out and about on a weekend running errands, so the store locator is a critical tool in that process.
eMarketer: How will you use mobile as a marketing tool?
“Targeted couponing seems to be getting a good response. We’re studying consumer engagement with location-based offers.”Grisko: We’ll look at SMS messaging, couponing and tying in with our Pals loyalty program. We haven’t done much in terms of marketing because we’re counting on our existing customer base to go to the mobile site. But we’ll do what you might expect—targeted couponing seems to be getting a good response. We’re studying consumer engagement with location-based offers.
eMarketer: How does Petco plan to address customer loyalty and post-sale customer service through the mobile channel?
Grisko: We’re continuing to enhance the relationship we have with loyal customers through targeted offers. We offer rewards coupons via email and direct mail, so mobile is the next channel for that. Our stores do weekend events around apparel, pet services, grooming and dog training, etc., and we hold adoption events.
We will use mobile increasingly to reach out directly to our customer base, to pet parents in general or people who are interested in becoming pet parents to talk about what Petco offers. We’ll target messages to these audiences about services that might be useful. It’s not just about products, it’s also about building a sense of community.
eMarketer: What are the most important metrics for getting a return on investment for the mobile channel?
Grisko: Like I said initially, mobile is an integrated part of our larger strategy. As such, it needs to meet the same key performance indicators that we look at across the board. Revenue per visit, whether the number of store visits has increased, average basket size—we’re looking at all those kinds of basic metrics.
eMarketer: What is your advice for retailers that are just entering the mobile channel as far as integration with ecommerce?
Grisko: The two things I definitely try to keep in mind as we’re looking at different opportunities is that we don’t want to jump into anything because everybody else is doing it. You have to watch your customer’s behavior, see what they need and what they’re using and meet those needs.
“Mobile is a tool for enhancing the store experience without adding associates on the floor, without installing kiosks in the store and so forth. It’s about giving customers tools to self-serve when they’re in the store or not.”Secondly, I see the mobile device as a conduit between the store and the online experience. Retailers need to come up with ways that not only enable customers to shop online if that’s what they wish to do, but also shop while they’re in the store. This is about offering them a more comprehensive experience—whether that’s finding reviews or the dimensions of a product, being able to access their loyalty information, book a grooming appointment or whatever the case may be. Mobile is a tool for enhancing the store experience without adding associates on the floor, without installing kiosks in the store and so forth. It’s about giving customers tools to self-serve when they’re in the store or not.
The full version of this interview is available here, to eMarketer Total Access clients only. Every day they have access to new interviews with digital marketing leaders and trendsetting entrepreneurs.
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