Retail Systems: What does the future hold for the retail technology sector?
With more and more retailers circling the mobile and social media arenas and ultimately striving to become truly multi-channel, Scott Thompson of Retail Systems asks Andrew McGregor and other ecommerce leaders: what does the future hold for the retail technology sector?
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Andrew McGregor, CEO at eCommera, believes that the future of retail will be dominated by three types of player: global superstores (e.g. Amazon, Walmart, Tesco) competing on range and price, brand owners selling direct to consumers, and niche specialists providing a multi-brand offer in categories where service is valued. All of these players will deliver seamlessly across all channels (online, in-store, mobile, social etc).
“As the multi-channel experience matures, we will see the role of each channel evolve - for example, the emergence of new store formats fulfilling an experiential role (e.g., Apple), or mobile delivering personalised offers and pricing when you are in a store,” says McGregor. “In terms of technologies, we believe that the Software as a Service (SaaS) model as a delivery method will become the technology delivery method of choice. In a multi-channel world retailers will need to manage high availability IT operations 24/7 across the different channels, which on a dedicated basis will be expensive. And as the technology in our view is not the source of competitive advantage, and the historical barriers to SaaS such as lack of control and weak SLA’s disappear, large retailers will embrace the cost, and flexibility benefits of a service without compromising on control.”
“Finally, multi-channel retailers will embrace data to help them drive and optimise their businesses. The technologies that enable retailers to harness the vast amount of data available to make better and faster decisions will be key to achieving success,” he concludes.