Customer-centric organizations try both to bring the right people to the products they're already selling, through appropriate marketing, and to identify the right products for the customers they're already serving, through appropriate merchandising. In neither case is a shoehorn a necessary tool. Many sites get whatever deals they can from their distributors and hawk them on their sites without any idea of whether their existing customer base will want them. In a typical product-centered organization, merchandising is frequently steering the ship. Marketing takes direction from merchandising based on what products and promotions merchandising can line up with distributors and manufacturers.
Customer service is like the cleanup crew after the party.
If customers are dissatisfied with the quality of a product or service, or if the enormous success of a promotion leaves some customers without access to the product or service, then merchandising and marketing celebrate their success, and customer service apologizes and tries to appease customers. In a customer-centric organization, marketing should be directing merchandising as to what kinds of products and promotions the existing customer base wants. If the existing customer base isn't the optimal customer mix for the company's long-term plans, then marketing should be working with merchandising to determine how to meet the needs of the optimal customer mix. Finally, marketing should work with customer service proactively to anticipate what customer service has to be prepared to deliver. They offer e-mail support and phone support for their Web orders, and if they have stores, they accept returns there.