NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--European and North American retailers could be losing out on sales due to a lack of personalization and unconnected customer experiences in-store, according to a new report from CitiXsys, a leading global retail solution company.
The report – “Europe and North America: A study in omnichannel contrasts” – reveals that, despite retailers’ efforts to integrate the omnichannel experience, brick-and-mortar stores are disappointing their customers on both sides of the Atlantic. It also shows sharp differences in the omnichannel expectations of consumers in Europe and North America.
As an example, North Americans are significantly more likely than Europeans to find online shopping more convenient than in-store: Seventy percent of North American consumers felt this way, compared to 50 percent in Europe.
Additionally, a quarter of those polled said that their brick-and-mortar store experiences felt like a “let down” after shopping online.
This, the report suggests, is because retailers don’t use data-driven insights about shoppers’ behaviors – from frequency of purchase to history and buying preferences – as effectively in the physical store as they do online, where these data-based insights allow retailers to deliver the personalized offers shoppers have come to expect.
Retailers are deploying tactics to bridge the digital divide, such as click and collect, which is used by 79 percent of UK and 60 percent of US consumers. However, consumers want retailers to do more to connect their online and offline shopping experiences. Sixty-six percent of North American consumers and 52 percent of UK consumers would like retailers to have a ‘single view’ of them, not only to personalize in-store experiences, but also to make their buying journeys seamless across shopping channels.
The CitiXsys report recommends that retailers should digitalize their brick-and-mortar outlets, using customer data and a single view of stock to deliver more tailored and connected interactions, putting the store back at the heart of their omnichannel strategies. By equipping store associates with tablet devices that are linked to back-end systems, they can bring the online experience to customers at the shelf edge, keeping the customer on the path to purchase.
“Our research shows consumers don’t shop in silos,” said Paula DaSilva, Senior VP of Sales, Asia Pacific and The Americas for iVend Retail (part of CitiXsys Worldwide). “As the divide between digital and physical shopping continues to blur, consumers no longer differentiate between channels, so retailers on both sides of ‘the pond’ must focus on delivering seamless customer experiences. Retailers can improve omnichannel sales by using technology to enable brick-and-mortar stores to behave in the same informed, flexible manner as online shopping.”
For more information on international consumer attitudes to omnichannel, download the report: http://www2.ivend.com/eu-na-omnichannel-report.
Notes to editors
Survey of 2,000 consumers from North
America and Europe. The sample size for the North American research
included 1,000 respondents from the US and Canada, while the European
research polled 1,000 shoppers from UK, Germany, France, Italy and
Spain. The research was conducted by Red Shift and AYTM on behalf of
iVend Retail.
About iVend Retail
iVend Retail is the omnichannel retail
management solution for the way retailers work today. It delivers a
fully integrated solution designed to enable change, not just built to
last. iVend Retail innovates retail technology, providing a
technically-superior solution and offering open APIs which can be
integrated broadly with leading ERPs and customer-facing applications.
For more information about iVend and CitiXsys, please visit www.ivend.com.
About CitiXsys
With more than 1,000 customers in over 45 countries using its products and solutions, CitiXsys is a leading provider of software products for the retail sector. CitiXsys has its corporate headquarters in New York and offices in Toronto, Mexico City, Panama City, London, Dubai, New Delhi, Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne.
