FeatureOver the last two years, the retail landscape has changed immeasurably. Consumer behaviour and technologies that seemed like they were a decade away from coming to fruition are now normal. According to a Gartner 2021 CIO survey in fact, nearly two-thirds of retail CIOs said that their relationships with their CEOs strengthened in 2020 as CIOs lead the business through significant disruption.
Personalisation is a mainstay in retail innovation for most of the decade. We are aware by now that consumers demand not just personalisation but hyper-personalised experiences. In fact, 84% are willing to pay more for hyper-personalised services, experiences powered by data, analytics and AI and provide retailers the insights and capabilities to adapt to customer’s changing realities in real-time.
Digital experience platform allows seamless integration of data from across the organisation for the best possible experience
In 2022, this trend is expected to continue as retailers take a more holistic approach to customer data. Instead of using customer data to send targeted promotions, retailers will use personalised insights to create simple, streamlined shopping processes.
The demand for seamless shopping experience in all retail channels becomes more and more apparent. Just five years ago, the GCC e-commerce sector was a small channel with a big future ahead of it. According to Statista, e-commerce in the GCC was expected to grow from $24 billion in 2020 to $50 billion by 2025 after the adjustments of the effect of the pandemic on e-commerce.
The market however grew an additional 6% due to the incremental increase in e-commerce adoption with the pandemic. It will continue to grow. While growth may not immediately accelerate as rapidly as it did pre-pandemic, most big retailers are now taking eCommerce far more seriously, especially when it comes to on-demand delivery. In 2022, expect e-commerce to take an even bigger slice of the retail pie.
Retailers will use personalised insights to create simple, streamlined shopping processes
But the growth in e-commerce is not restricted to business to consumer B2C sales. Manufacturers can take advantage of the e-commerce boom to become retailers themselves with a new D2C channel. That means cutting out third-party e-commerce sites that often take a large slice out of their revenues.
As e-commerce continues to grow, people’s expectations of physical retail stores will change. They may, for instance, be places where consumers go to experience the goods you are selling before buying online. To come back to their former glory, brick-and-mortar stores will have to adjust to the demands of a modern, digitally native customer.
Customers who are accustomed to a certain level of CX, will continue to expect the same experience online. Retailers will have to play into this by creating seamless experiences between the online and offline worlds, by creating experiential retail.
As e-commerce continues to grow, people’s expectations of physical retail stores will change
This is possible through a digital experience platform as it allows seamless integration of data from across the organisation for the best possible experience, no matter where the customer might be.
If the events of the past two years have taught us anything, it is that change can come quickly, and retailers need to be able to adapt to that change.
Customers will continue to expect the same experience online and retailers will have to create seamless experience between online and offline worlds.
