Report Finds Retailers Unequipped For The Demands Of Modern Commerce

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Retailers are not investing enough to facilitate seamless cross-channel commerce.

As retailers face growing pressure to facilitate seamless transactions across a variety of touchpoints, they are failing to adequately equip themselves to perform. Despite the growing importance of cross-channel commerce, a new study from 1WorldSync has found that 60 percent  of retailers have invested less than 20 percent of their total commerce budget on digital and mobile commerce expansion in the last year.

“Charting Course for Global Commerce” found that today’s merchants (retailers, distributors, and wholesalers) are simply not equipped for the demands of modern commerce. Key findings include:

• ROI hasn’t matured past the website: 54 percent of merchants report the highest online ROI from their website, and nearly one in six (13 percent) haven’t seen any ROI from channels like mobile, social media, or third-party marketplaces.
• Data exists in siloes: 77 percent have yet to integrate product information management across web, mobile, app and in store.
• Future plans won’t stop revenue loss: Despite the fact that 46 percent have lost more than $1 million due to cross-channel commerce, only 15 percent plan to invest more than half  of their total digital budget in this area.

“In the dynamic world of digital commerce, merchants and suppliers are facing significant issues capitalizing on the opportunities within different channels and geographies. As the space has evolved, there are more regulations to comply with, more channels to be present on and more partners to trade with than ever before,” said Nihat Arkan, CEO of 1WorldSync. “Before both sides of the retail equation can truly master omnichannel commerce, they have to ensure their digital investments address their current challenges.”

For current market leaders, however, top action items to up their e-commerce game include:

• Immediate investment in cross-channel capabilities: The report found that 65 percent of market leaders have allocated more than 30 percent of their commerce budget to digital and mobile commerce expansion over the past twelve months, and 73 percent of merchant market leaders today are able to fully execute mobile commerce.
• Engagement with third-party content providers: 80 percent of market leaders utilize a third-party content provider to improve visibility between trading partners.
• Migration to the cloud: 95 percent of supplier market leaders use a cloud-based product information system to simplify the online sales process and enhance chain efficiency.

“Early adopters of retail technologies that make cross-channel commerce more efficient and streamlined have become clear market leaders,” furthered Arkan. “Because of the breadth and scale of today’s e-commerce environment, managing product content while investing in infrastructure that can adapt to future market demands should be a major priority for every company in this space. The key lesson for the rest of the market is that investments in technology that centralizes data and better enables merchants and suppliers to be more connected pay off.”