In this second IREU Top500 Performance Dimension Report, we focus squarely on mobile and cross-channel retail. One device in particular has transformed this area: the smartphone. That’s because the smartphone manages to be both the cross-channel glue that binds sales channels together, yet also the lubricant that makes the customer journey across retail touchpoints smoother. It enables a shopper to search the retail store from home and also to look for online information from within the store. Coupled with cross-channel services such as click and collect or in-store returns, this sales channel has become a driver of growth all across Europe.
In this Dimension Report, we explore how retailers are using mobile in their business models as they trade at scale in this continent, and we investigate how the use of mobile varies between markets. Our strategic overview, from M-Retailing editor Paul Skeldon, considers the context, looking at how retailers use mobile across the continent as well as within its different, distinct, markets.
We drill into the numbers supporting this view in our Analysing the Numbers feature. Over the following pages, we look at best practice examples through a combination of case studies and interviews. Czech general merchandise retailer Alza gives us our interview subject, while supporting case studies focus on Apple, Bon Prix, House of Fraser and Zara. Our 12 approaches that work feature aims to learn from best practice to offer retailers a way towards offering exemplary mobile and cross-channel service.
In our emerging practice feature, Paul Skeldon looks at Internet of Things technology and asks how this will feed into the future of mobile retailing. Finally, in our new research feature, we consider the impact of page loading times on retailers’ performance. Speed, we learn, is hugely important.
We’ve found much that interested us in this area and we hope that it proves equally interesting to our readers. We’re looking forward to exploring these themes in the future through IREU Top500 Dimension Reports over the coming months.
We’d like to thank all of the Knowledge Partners who have contributed their expertise and insights for this Dimension Report. We welcome your thoughts on new areas of research as we add to our primary data and analysis.
Please email: jonathan@internetretailing.net and chloe@internetretailing.net
Jonathan Wright and Chloe Rigby, Editors
