Most retailers are anxious to put 2009 behind them. The lingering effects of the recession cut into top-line sales and left many merchants scrambling to cut costs. Looking ahead to 2010, leading industry analysts predict spending by retailers will remain tight, and
the priorities will be centered on areas that can provide cost efficiencies, increase sales and also strengthen the relationship with a retailer’s customer base.
In a recent survey of 200 retail executives conducted by Aberdeen Group, 54% of retailers indicated that one of their top recession-beater strategies is to cut payroll, marketing and operational expenses. In the areas where retailers are planning to invest in technologies, Aberdeen found store operations and CRM initiatives would be a top priority.
Within the next 24 months, Aberdeen found the top investments retailers planned were in the following areas:
- KPI-driven operational and executive perfor¬mance dashboards (46%),
- employee scheduling tools (40%),
- store productivity and experience tools (43%),
- cross-channel applications for marketing, order, and fulfillment (42%),
- demand-driven forecasting application (45%),
- consumer-driven replenishment (44%),
- customer-loyalty applications (43%).
The need to keep costs down across on new technology adoptions was also a priority among the retailers Aberdeen surveyed. According to Sahir Anand, Retail Research Director for Aberdeen Group, the top deployment criteria are:
- cost of deployment (42%)
- scalability for enterprise-wide adoption (37%)
- customization of specific features and functions (36%)
“The key differentiators in 2010 will be around risk mitigation, integration, scalability, prioritization and intro¬duction of lean techniques,” said Anand, pointing to opportunities to introduce thin-client, SaaS, outsourcing and cloud computing as primary trends.
SHAPING THE SHOPPER EXPERIENCE
For those retailers looking to differentiate through innovation, analysts point out there will be game-changing developments in-store for brick and mortar retailers as they look to compete with the e-commerce experience in 2010. “The tough part for brick and mortar stores is that the digital shopping experiences have set the bar for them,” said Laura Davis-Taylor, author of “Lighting Up the Aisle,” and founder of Retail Media Consulting. “Most shoppers find it quite frustrating that the various support offered online is not bridged into the physical store."
Davis Taylor pointed to the following technologies to help retailers bridge that gap in 2010:
- Kiosks or touch screens that link to loyalty data and provide personal shopper communications, recommendations and incentives
- Touch screens that provide in-depth product or category information and empower shoppers (which can also be used for associate training)
- Digital signage applications that can link into all of the above (as well as POS systems) to monitor what’s happening in the store and intelligently build content
- Mobile applications that can help shoppers find “on the go” product information
Jim Dion, author and founder of retail consultancy Dionco, agreed that mobile devices could have a significant impact on the shopping experience in 2010. “We have been predicting for quite a few years that mobile is going to surpass the Web for commerce, it will not happen in 2010 but it will be the tipping point when we look back,” Dion predicted. “More and more smart phones are hit¬ting consumer’s pockets and smart companies are learning how to leverage that device into an impulse buying machine. I would spend my dollars on making digital analog through an investment in mobile apps that work in symbiosis with my store strategy and make it easy to shop and buy.”
Leslie Hand, Research Director at IDC Global Retail Insights, agreed that mobile is emerging as an additional sales channel and suggested retailers should make investments with that cross-channel shopper in mind. “Utilize advanced consumer intelligence, mobile and self-serve capabilities,” Hand advised. “The target customer is the ‘omni-channel’ shopper, an evolution of the multi-channel consumer, who wants to use all channels—store, call center, Web and mobile—simultaneously, not in parallel.”
