E-commerce has never reached even 1% of Procter & Gamble Co.'s sales, but now the company is looking to increase that share more than fivefold as it seeks to capitalize on its growing investment in digital media.
P&G -- and new CEO Bob McDonald -- is counting on e-commerce, including sales through such outlets as Amazon and Walmart.com as well as through its own websites, to become as much as a $4 billion or bigger business for the $79 billion company. That's more than eight times the $500 million a year P&G gets today from e-commerce.
Tellingly, P&G included both digital media and e-commerce in the job responsibilities of Lucas Watson when it appointed him global team leader of its digital business last year. Traditionally, the company has kept its retail sales and brand marketing functions mostly divided. But giving him responsibility for both has a strategic purpose, as the interconnection is both obvious and growing.
"Some categories see as much as 30% to 50% of their business in e-commerce," Mr. Watson said. "Our forecasts don't suggest consumer products will ever work like that. But it's not out of the realm of possibility e-commerce will be more than 1% of our sales. Getting north of 10% would be an aggressive goal, but somewhere in between that would be, we think, within the realm of possibility."
That would put e-commerce on par with such channels as dollar stores and drugstores, he said.
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