Getting a shared basket between brands right

Over the last week or so I've been doing some consulting work for a retail group that has a multitude of brand identities. I've been working with them on their eCommerce strategy and one piece of functionality they're keen to introduce is a shared basket across their various branded sites.

I seemed to remember that Gap had done this for their Banana Republic, Old Navy, Piperlime and Gap branded sites. The Client referenced AH in the Netherlands as an example.

So, I thought I'd take a look at the Gap site and what the general perception of how successful it had been. I found an article by eConsultancy dated January 2009 which referenced Foresee's Online Retail Satisfaction Index report indicating that Gap had seen a fall in satisfaction since the shared basket went live, citing:

"This feature may not have been important to Gap’s online customers to begin with because they may view the other brands differently in terms of price, quality, and style"

Interestingly, taking a look at the AH brands and how they've implemented shared basket, I would expect it to be quite a success. They have clearly differentiated product assortments between the brands sharing the basket; Groceries vs Wines vs Telecoms vs Photos.

The key point here and probably a lesson Gap are learning, is that when you make it easy for your customers to compare between your brands with similar assortments at different prices, in this current climate it will inevitably lead to sales cannabilisation as their customers defect across from the higher cost brands. I'm sure it's probably led to an uneasy political atmosphere as the lower cost brands exceed expectations, whilst the higher cost brands fall short.

Whilst there maybe some overall benefits in sharing IT infrastructure, as I have advised our client, be careful which of your brands end up sharing the basket, particularly given the similarities between their assortments and their online pricing models!