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| Business World Magazine |
November 2012
tainability space, continually working to be
more environmentally friendly,” Chroust
says. “One of the great outcomes from striv-
ing to be ‘green’ is that retailers have made
their processes more efficient and reduced
costs.” Another key trend in the industry is
multichannel retailing. Today’s retailer has
to sell across a myriad of channels – includ-
ing in-store, catalog over-the-phone, online
and more recently, mobile platforms such
as smartphones and tablets. “We are trying
to make a seamless customer experience for
the shopper,” he says. “We want our brands
to resonate with consumers in a consistent,
meaningful way across these channels.”
Channels are blurring, and the game
is changing, though. With the ubiquity of
smartphones, “It is the first time in the his-
tory of retailing where we can take one chan-
nel (mobile devices) into another channel