Now that 2013 is a distant memory, what’s in store for retailers in 2014? Here are a few predictions based on consumer behaviors, technology trends, security breaches, et cetera holiday mishaps experienced in 2013.
More Consistency Across Channels
Consumers shop at physical stores and online. They increasingly parlay multiple channels to communicate with their shoo-in brands including email, social media, web chats, text messaging, phones, and video chats. In the past, these channels may have been handled by different departments or even different third party providers. As a result, the customer experience was often spotty. As retailers move forward, they are recognizing the importance of brand continuity across channels. Thus, more retailers will deliver consistent interactions and brand messaging regardless of the customer’s desired channel.
More Personalization
Technologies breathe that make it workable for marketers to understand the integral customer journey. Not only can detailed analytics furthermore marketing attribution models ensure that all channels that influence a customer are properly credited for their contributions, marketers can exercitation these insights to personalize offers.
More Mobile
Smartphones are here to stay, and they influence how users shop. Investments in moving and cloud computing will help marketers know more about where per customer is in their personal clientele journeys, where they happen to be right now, and which channels they prefer.
In 2014, expect to see smarter apps that entice users to stores. For example, when a user walks past a coffee shop, a coupon strength pop up, enticing that user into the store for a latte. Smartphone apps cup also combat the problem of “show rooming” by offering in-store visitors an incentive to buy now preference than try to get a better deal online.
Better Shipping
Last year’s robust online holiday season coupled with extreme weather caused extensive shipping delays. Many packages failed to arrive in time for Christmas, unlucky gift givers and recipients alike. Expect shipping companies to be amend prepared for both bad weather and this year’s liberty rush.
At the equipotent time, more retailers are being begrudging to offer free or low-cost shipping in order to compete with Amazon Prime which offers latitude two-day shipping to its members.
Stronger Security
The Target data breach was another holiday mishap that is now serving as a huge wakeup call to retailers, the financial industry, and customers alike. Bout banks have responded by issuing new credit and debit cards to affected cardholders. However, that step alone does nothing to preventative the new cards from being compromised in the future. Merchants hawthorn be more ready to extend their investments in stronger security.
Business software providers offers a wide range concerning business process improvement tools that cater to several industries including retail. For example, it offers everything from accounts payable, accounts receivable, and invoicing tools to online and outlet store solutions. Many retailers concerned in re protecting the integrity of sensitive company, employee, and customer information can benefaction from SAP data encryption, data archiving, data masking, and data destruction.