According to the latest IT in Retail Report of the Top 100 Companies, retailers’ investment in IT stays stagnant this year, but the industry is planning to invest in technology as the economy improves. The anticipated growth is due in part to the likelihood
of retailers investing in replacement or new technology in the near future. The report shows store systems re-emerging as the top application for replacement by 23% of retailers. Ageing store and merchandising systems are struggling to keep pace with the rapidly changing requirements of multichannel operations. However, despite this, the report suggests that IT budgets may not return to pre-recessionary levels.
The last five years have seen the shift to multichannel retailing and now the growth of mobile internet access and m-commerce. The gap between investing in store systems and e-commerce is reducing, showing the increasing importance of e-commerce and multichannel retailing. For the leading non-food retailers, e-commerce is the top investment priority (24 per cent), with store systems ranked second (18 per cent).
E-commerce, multichannel and m-commerce are the fields of the new retail battleground, as non-store sales for retailers with a store network average 6.3 per cent of total sales, up from last year’s 4.8 per cent. Some leading fashion retailers report non-store sales well in excess of 10%, underlining the return achievable from this investment. The increasing significance of non-store retailing is underlined by 88 per cent of retailers believing non-store sales will increase next year.
Retailers’ investment in e-commerce extends from setting up a transactional website for the first time to improving the customer experience by adding more features, products, ranges or brands, internationalising the site, data security, encryption of payment data and multi-channel integration.
Image: psdGraphics
Source: Martec International (sponsored by BT Expedite)
