The following is a true story. Only the names, the people, the retailer, the locations and the entire scenario have been made up.  

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SUNAK'S DEPARTMENT STORE - DAY

After lunch one Friday, RITA enters the recently opened Sunak's department store, hoping to exchange a coat for a smaller version and return a handbag. She joins the small queue at the tills. It’s stationary for a few minutes before the customers in front of her suddenly abandon their baskets and storm off. Rita approaches the counter.

RITA: Is everything OK, dear?

ROBERT, the shop assistant, replies in near-terror.

ROBERT: All our systems have gone down! So I can't take payments at the moment. I'm really sorry.

RITA: (sympathetically) Should I come back later?

ROBERT: No, it's OK; we have a backup where our tills can work offline. That should be available in a minute, so we can help you then.

Rita waits patiently as the queue behind her gets rowdy. The tannoy crackles to life.

TANNOY (V.O.): Ladies and gentlemen, we're very sorry, but we're having a few system problems. If you could just bear with us for a few minutes, we should have everything back up and running shortly.

Minutes later, a sigh of relief spreads across the tills – offline mode is enabled.

ROBERT: (visibly relieved) Now, how can I help you?

RITA: I'd like to exchange this coat for a smaller one and get a refund for this handbag, please.

Robert's relief disappears like an equalising 90-minute VAR-denied goal.

ROBERT: You'll have to give me a few minutes, as I need to get a supervisor to authorise a refund.

RITA: Is that because of offline mode?

ROBERT: Yes, not everything works normally offline. Offline means our network is unavailable, so our store can't talk to the outside world.

Rita beams with a curious thought and takes out her mobile phone.

RITA: My grandson has shown me how to use something called 'Wi-Fi Hotspot' so I can access the Internet on my iPad when I'm out and about. I still have a connection – would you like me to share it with you?

ROBERT: Thank you, but I'm afraid that's not possible. Don't worry, a supervisor is on their way.

Time passes. 

No online system means customers attempting to purchase gift cards can’t, and those picking up their Click & Collect parcels wait an age for the parcels to be manually located. Colleagues can’t pick items for in-store C&C fulfilment and can’t replenish stock. So, stock file accuracy erodes.

The SUPERVISOR arrives, frustrated by the realisation her entire day has gone. 

She forces a smile for Rita, authorises the handbag refund, and then exchanges the larger coat for a smaller one (manually).

Rita leaves the store, satisfied but confused. 

RITA'S HOME - LATER THAT DAY

RITA: (to her husband) I don't understand how I could be connected to the Internet on my little phone, but that entire store couldn't connect at all?

NARRATOR (V.O.): Rita was correct. In fact, all 121 Sunak's branches had been offline for nearly four hours that day, causing an estimated £1.6m in lost revenue. The problem? A network issue in Sunak's on-premise data centre. Fortunately, Sunak's senior management team had spent several million pounds ensuring their stores could operate offline. Bully for them.

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FADE OUT.

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For Dave Gorman’s Radio 4 programme “Genius” a few years ago, I wrote in to suggest Airbus could make their planes safer. I suggested fitting each one with a giant parachute to gently lower it to the ground if something went wrong or with a giant airbag that deploys upon a crash. The response was to suggest Airbus could save that money and redirect it to ensuring the planes stayed airborne instead.

But retailers don’t seem to want to do the equivalent. 

Offline mode is an airbag; it’s an artificial safety net following a failure that requires weeks of unpicking to restore normality, upsets everyone involved, and lowers NPS. 

Airbags are also expensive. Retailers spend a fortune ensuring their tills can function when things go wrong. Would a better investment be to prevent things from going wrong in the first place?

Retailers tell their customers to “Start your journey with us on our app or website and complete it in-store!” Yet, they refer to the stores as the “offline” environment in internal presentations. Every single in-store customer is connected (and if they’re not, there’s a bigger problem going on), so why are retailers so obsessed with the opposite?

Rather than spending millions on ensuring an “offline mode” capable of processing transactions, would a better investment be in providing an alternative online mode? One that perhaps takes advantage of improvements in resilience and hardly-new technologies such as SDWAN and 4G/5G backups?

It’s what the online pure-plays do. I appreciate that 75% of their revenue doesn’t come from tills – 100% of it comes from online purchases, hence the investment in ensuring online availability.

Retailers: stores are not “the offline environment”, and you’re kidding yourselves that you’re “omnichannel” if you create completely different technology solutions for in-store commerce versus online commerce. It’s the same customer wherever they’re shopping, and they don’t care about your anachronistic obsession with offline.

Keep your planes in the air.  Don’t make them crash more gently.

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