Through the pages of this report we’ve taken a picture of the practical ways in which IRUK Top500 retailers are working to understand and serve their customers. That picture is a snapshot of a fast-changing scene, in which details are evolving and adapting all the time.
The pace of change comes as retailers adapt to changing consumer behaviour, offering ever-more convenient delivery and collection options, effective customer service and faster mobile and desktop websites.
The pace of change is getting faster all the time, as leading retailers introduce new innovation and early adopters follow their example. When we revisit The Customer dimension in 2019 we expect that in some ways the experience that some retailers offer will look very different in some ways and very similar in others. That amount of change can be hard to plan for.
A more focused approach, and one that many leading IRUK Top500 retailers take, is to take the lead from the customer.
Service is most relevant when retailers find out – either through asking their customers or monitoring their behaviour – what services shoppers want, and how they want the retail experience to evolve.
Sometimes relatively small changes can have a big effect, boosting revenues and profitability for low investment, while at other times more wholesale evolution is required in order to build a business that meets customers’ needs.
However the sector adapts over the next year we’ll be covering those changes. Over the next year the RetailX research team will also be working to extend our understanding of multichannel retail through the performance-led analysis that they’ve put to work here.
As always, we’re interested in how we can extend our research and improve the quality of our findings in this area. Is there a new or emerging tool or approach that you consider vital and that we should monitor in future reporting? Get in touch with your ideas and any potential datasets via research@internetretailing.net or tweet @etail with #IRUK500.
