Skeptical retailers eyeing fluctuations in the financial market and the increasing failure rates of Internet companies are often blind to the most important issue - specifically, the degree to which their online efforts will affect their off-line business. Online consumers are a very powerful audience and tend to be channel-agnostic. And as consumers increase their use of the Internet, the opportunity for the Web to influence their online and off-line shopping behavior grows. Simply put, businesses must integrate across channels.
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