Retail in Asia

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RetailWATCH: Retailers must be prepared for all possible channels used by omni-channel users

Today’s shoppers are increasingly interacting with retailers across three or more channels, giving rise to the term ‘omni-channel shoppers’. In addition to in-store engagement, these shoppers are overwhelmingly turning to ecommerce both at home and on the go via multiple devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, and notebooks. The chart below demonstrates the growing reliance omni-channel shoppers have on an array of device types.

At the same time, omni-channel shoppers often combine shopping channels simultaneously. For example, a recent Google/Ipsos survey showed that 96% of consumers have used their smartphone to research a product or service and 78% have them while shopping in brick and mortar stores. Yet another Google/Ipsos study found that the overwhelming majority of consumers take a multi-device path to making their purchase. In fact, 65% of shoppers say they have started shopping on a smartphone and continued shopping on either a desktop, PC, or tablet.

But omni-channel shoppers are not just using their newer device types for comparison shopping; they are increasingly making their actual purchases with smartphones and tablets. 

In its recent report on The Store of the Future, Deloitte notes how these changes in omni-channel behavior are shaping plans for retailers’ brick and mortar stores. 

The Retail Imperative: Uniquely Address Each Omni-channel Situation
The number of omni-channel shoppers will only grow with the proliferation of Wi-Fi, broadband, and mobile technologies that enable retail website access to users around the world on any device type. As a result, retailers must address tremendous diversity among variables that impact the end-user experience, including connection points, browsers, devices, and operating systems that connect browsers. Akamai refers to all the permutations of these variables as “the situation” – the way in which users access information, conduct commerce, and otherwise engage with retailers.

What does this mean for retailers?
They must prepare their ecommerce infrastructure to rapidly respond to a wide variety of situations in order to deliver the best experience possible to valuable omni-channel shoppers. To do so, retailers must gain “situational awareness,” and they do so by answering questions such as the following:

• Is the current shopper accessing the site from a desktop machine running IE 9 over a cable connection?
• How does delivery vary if the user is accessing the site from a MacBook running Safari through public Wi-Fi or an Android smartphone on 3G?

Wi-Fi or an Android smartphone on 3G?
In other words, retailers must be aware of and prepared to address all possible combinations of channels and technologies being used by an omnichannel shopper at any given moment so as to deliver an optimal user experience. They key is to automate situational awareness of each shopper, and respond with the appropriate content type and delivery method.

Download this whitepaper to find out more.