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EDITORIAL Amazon to Zara: focus on innovation through technology

30 Aug 2018

by Chloe Rigby

In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter, we’re moving into our final week of summer focus on the IRUK Top500 dimensions. This week, the focus is on Strategy & Innovation and we’re reporting on how leading retailers from Amazon to Ocado, Zara and Zalando are using technology to change the way they serve customers who themselves are adopting more sophisticated technology that they now want to use to buy in the way that suits them at any given moment.

We delve into our IREU Top500 series for a report on how Zara is using both established and emerging technology to boost the in-store customer experience and for examples of how retailers from Amazon to Ocado and Zalando are using technology to innovate in their businesses. What’s clear is that leading retailers are now building on firm digital foundations to choose the technologies that particularly meet their customers’ needs.

We take a mobile angle as we report on research that suggests Generation Z and millennial shoppers would rather buy via smartphone, we look at a Parcelforce kiosk trial that makes delivery more mobile, and consider a study from InternetRetailing Knowledge Partner Beetle that looks at whether retailers are using text or images in their marketing emails, with some perhaps surprising findings.

Today’s guest comment comes from Colin Close of Evalon, who considers how technology is already changing retail in the present, and looks set to change it in the future.

RetailCraft podcast

Find out more about the first two episodes of InternetRetailing’s RetailCraft podcasts featuring Heals and the Rug Company.

RetailCraft 01 – David Kohn of Heals – “probably the most sceptical man in the industry”? Surely not!

RetailCraft 02 – Sarah Stagg of The Rug Company and the 2018 IREU Top500

Webinars

Find out more about upcoming InternetRetailing webinars and register for free on the InternetRetailing webinar page. You can also catch up with past webinars on the page.

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