In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter, we’re reporting as John Lewis Partnership names six businesses that could help it to reimagine the store. The retailer says that it’s now vital to inspire and delight customers through both fantastic products and personalised experiences, and it’s looked to identify technology companies that can help it in that mission at a time of what it describes as seismic change in the industry. In doing so, it’s found some interesting ideas, which have service and experience at their heart. This, it believes is the key to a question that’s facing retailers of all types and sizes: how to give shoppers new reasons to come into the store when the convenience of online shopping is making it ever easier for them to buy from wherever they are.
Just as John Lewis argues that change in-store is necessary as retailers adapt to fast-changing and fast-developing customer expectations, so change is also taking place online and today we look at what’s changed in House of Fraser’s online and multichannel performance, as measured by our RetailX researchers, six months on from its acquisition by Sports Direct.
We look ahead to the eighth annual InternetRetailing Expo. In keeping with our theme of change, this year’s Expo is shifting away from a broad view of multichannel retailing in order to focus on online retailing, from how retailers can win new customers to how they can improve their shopping experience. The Expo, to be held on April 3 and 4, will this year welcome shoppers from both the IRUK Top500 to the Growth 2000 companies that are challenging those leading retailers.
Meanwhile, our European coverage looks at how Amazon is facing a European probe in Austria, and how Pandora’s new chief brings marketing expertise to the company.
Today’s guest comment comes from Demetrius Williams of Translate Media, who considers how retailers can best localise their customer experience for European shoppers.
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