During his keynote at Shop.org last fall, Urban Outfitters CEO Glen Senk revealed that the retailers’ multichannel customers spend two to three times more than single-channel shoppers. Additionally, consumers who engage with the company across three or more channels spend six times more than the average consumer.

See Marrying the Mobile and In-Store Experience

Some marketers are going to read this and think that if they can get their customers to interact with them on three or more channels, they’ll get six times more revenue from them.

This would be a confusion of cause and effect.

For example — If I really love Captain Black pipe tobacco, I’ll buy it in the store, on my PC, on my Nook, and (if I had one) on my smart phone. I might like it on Facebook or follow it on Twitter. (Does Captain Black even have a twitter feed?) Because if I love Captain Black, I’d be thinking about it a lot, and whenever I need a new supply, I’d order it with whatever is at hand.

But whether or not Captain Black is on any or all of those channels doesn’t cause me to love it. In fact, I don’t. Even back when I did dabble with pipe tobacco, it wasn’t my favorite.

So all these channels are a convenience if I’m already in love with the brand, but the channels don’t induce me to love it. In fact, when I see attempts to get me to “like” some brand on Facebook, I find them pathetic and it makes me think less of the brand.

When I do really love something — like Young’s Ram Rod — it doesn’t bother me that I can’t follow it on Twitter or order it on my Nook.

That might not be fair because you can’t order beer online anyway. At least not in Maryland. But change the example to something else, like peanut M&Ms. I don’t really care if I can order them on a smart phone.

Being available on all these different channels might be convenient for some customers in some situations for some types of products, but it’s not as if being on multiple channels is going to increase sales … just because.