The Gap Extends Its Web Strategy to the Store Point of Sale

As part of its multi-channel strategy, The Gap Inc. is moving toward web-enabled POS terminals in all stores following a recent pilot, Cornell Williams, vice president-direct and chief technology officer for The Gap, told attendees Tuesday at the eTail 2003 East conference in Boston. Web-enabled POS is only in a pilot stage now, he said, but that will change. ?We will aggressively move forward to roll it out chainwide,? Williams said.

The benefits of web-enabled POS are several, he said. For starters, having the web accessible by employees at the POS terminal allows sales associates to look up products online and order them for the customer, thus potentially saving a sale. ?It allows the store associate to do everything you can do at the web site,? he said. For another, it can provide customer data automatically to the store. ?If the customer is registered with us online, when she shops at a store the system populates the order at the store with the customer information we?ve gathered in the web,? Williams