News from the Wire

Study reveals within 5 years, 75% of merchants plan to ID customers

Tuesday, June 10, 2014 — 11:43:58 (EDT)

Boston, June 9, 2014 -- Unified Commerce is the evolution of both multi-channel and omni-channel retailing that provides a seamless experience in the store, on the Web or anywhere customers choose to shop. The key Unified Commerce initiatives, such as enhancing customer engagement, collecting and analyzing customer behavior, and personalizing the experience, are the top priorities for retailers, as evidenced by the results from the Boston Retail Partners 1st Annual CRM/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey published today.

The 2014 CRM/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey of top North American retailers offers insights into retailers’ current state and planned initiatives, priorities, and future trends that relate to customer relationship management (CRM) practices associated with the retail industry’s shift to Unified Commerce.

“It was impressive to learn how many retailers are now focused on implementing the technologies to deliver Unified Commerce, but there is still a lot of work to be done to deliver these capabilities,” said Walter Deacon, Principal, Boston Retail Partners. “Delivering Unified Commerce requires seamless execution of the right strategy, technology, and business processes.”

The looming challenge is that while Marketing has become the center of the Unified Commerce organization, it is often still on its own with regards to developing marketing technology strategies and evaluating and selecting technology. With the importance of multiple key marketing initiatives to achieve a seamless shopping experience, retailers need to examine ways to improve the unification of Marketing and IT to successfully implement these projects. Many larger retailers have developed a role in the organization that helps bridge this gap – a senior-level role responsible for working with IT to develop a marketing technology strategy and evaluate and implement the technology.

“To deliver the seamless experience, retailers need to gather, analyze and disseminate customer, product, pricing and inventory data in real-time,” said Ken Morris, Principal, Boston Retail Partners. “Leveraging technology, Unified Commerce provides the platform and real-time retail is key to delivering the experience. Retailers that successfully deliver Unified Commerce will understand and adopt a ‘unified’ approach for: strategic customer initiatives, technology, business processes and execution.”

Key Survey Results

• 95% of the respondents indicated customer experience/ customer engagement is one of their top three current initiatives

• 3% have the ability to identify the customer when she walks in the store, and another 72% plan to implement this within five years

• 16% currently have real-time retail from POS (which offers the “Amazon” experience in the store) and another 63% plan to implement within five years

• 28% currently use mobile marketing and another 62% plan to implement this within five years (56% plan to implement mobile marketing within two years)

• 81% have implemented some type of customer database, typically as part of a CRM or loyalty platform

• 22% of retailers have implemented real-time analytics and 61% plan to implement it within two years.

To download the complete 2014 CRM/Unified Commerce Benchmark Survey, visit: www.bostonretailpartners.com/resources/crm-unified-commerce-benchmark-survey/ .

About Boston Retail Partners

Boston Retail Partners (BRP) is an innovative and independent retail management consulting firm dedicated to providing superior service and enduring value to our clients. BRP combines its consultants' deep retail business knowledge and cross-functional capabilities to deliver superior design and implementation of strategy, technology, and process solutions. The firm's unique combination of industry focus, knowledge-based approach, and rapid, end-to-end solution deployment helps clients to achieve their business potential. BRP’s consulting services include:

Strategy | Business Intelligence | Business Process Optimization Point of Sale (POS) | Mobile POS | Store Systems and Operations CRM | Unified Commerce | Customer Experience & Engagement Order Management | eCommerce | Merchandise Management Supply Chain | Information Technology | Private Equity

For more information on BRP, visit www.bostonretailpartners.com and follow the BRP Retail Insights Blog at www.bostonretailpartners.com/blog .

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Source: Company press release.