Bye-bye brick and mortar?

Kudos to the Center for Media Research without which I would have missed the interesting report by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), entitled “Channel Integration and Benchmarks in the Retail Industry.”

Boring title - interesting info:

• The absence of a brick-and-mortar store is becoming prevalent among retailers — 41 percent of survey respondents don’t have a physical store. [my note: survey was 101 retailers surveyed in November 2007]
• The website is the most consistently used direct marketing channel, followed by email and direct mail.
• Mobile is the direct marketing channel retailers are least likely to use.
• Among the survey respondents, 66 percent gather customer information from direct mail, and 65 percent gather it from the Internet.
• Discounts remain the most popular loyalty program, with 80 percent of respondents using them.