The worlds of multi-channel and social media are becomingly increasingly intertwined, as smart retailers embed their social media strategies within the heart of their business. None the less, following on from today's post focussing on the social media end of that relationship, some more news, this time with more of an e-comm/multi-channel focus.
Show Me the Money!
The latest annual IT in Retail report which researched the UK's leading 100 retailers has revealed that for the first time ever, top retailers' priority for IT investment is e-commerce and mobile commerce.
The research by Martec International found that e-commerce and m-commerce as an investment priority has grown from 17% last year to 23% this year; overtaking investment in store systems- the focus for the previous nine years.
The research also found that 16% of the retailers now use m-commerce (big increase on last year's 5%0, with a further 12% planning to take it up.
Whilst some retailers said the investment was being used to set up a transactional web site for the first time (24% of the top 100 do not have one, although 5% are planning to set one up) for others, e-commerce was an investment priority to :
- improve the customer experience
- add more products, ranges or brands
- internationalise their web site
- improve multichannel integration.
Also relevant: investment in new or replacement head office systems was also up, with 25% of retailers planning to replace merchandise management systems, (up 8% over last year), and 15% said they intended to replace their planning systems (whilst 6% were implementing one for the first time)
As Brian Hume, managing director, Martec International, points out : “Many retailers are struggling to keep pace with the rapidly changing requirements of multichannel operations with legacy systems slowing them down. Replacing these systems is vital for gaining competitive advantage. Consumers expect a seamless experience across all channels and retailers need to offer a single stock pool that can be accessed from all customer touch points, such as smartphones to check stock availability, pricing and product information.”
Richard Lowe, CEO, BT Expedite, concluded “Retailers are generally holding IT spending constant again in 2011, but there’s a positive indication of an increase of retailers planning to upgrade key business systems to keep pace with the continuing shift to multichannel retailing, as well as the growth of mobile internet access and m-commerce. .”
We Know What you Like
And in a recent example of investment in .e-commerce..
As was reported at the SMI 2011 conference, consumers are becoming increasingly demanding- in these straitened times, it simply takes more to convince us to part with our hard earned cash. One of the ways retailers can do that is to personalise their offering to us, making it more relevant and therefore more likely to appeal. With this in mind, Planet Retail reports that Dixons has launched personalised product recommendations across its e-commerce websites.The personalisation and analytics technology was implemented at http://www.dixons.co.uk/, http://www.currys.co.uk/ and http://www.pcworld.co.uk/ sites. The technology will provide customers with individualised recommendations based on the preferences and personal attributes each shopper has shared, the data the retailer holds on relationships between products or product categories and the behavioural patterns of similar shoppers. All recommendations include an explicit message about why a product is being suggested.
N.B. The company plans to offer shoppers the personalisation seamlessly across multiple channels, re-inforcing the continually made point about consistency of message and offering across the multiple platforms upon which a retailer may operate.
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