E-Commerce Platforms And The Digital Future

By Nikki Baird, Retail Systems Research

In the world of cross-channel, the actual number of channels has seemingly exploded. Facebook is a channel, and now mobile and even Google could be considered a channel for retailers. At the same time, retailers are throwing stacks of iPads and iPod Touches into stores in advance of this holiday season, in the hopes of providing assisted selling, or even more basic product information and customer service tools to store associates.

So, what does all of this mean for e-commerce platforms? From RSR's perspective, the timing couldn't be better to ask this question, as we've just launched our annual survey on the topic and this question is shaping a lot of how we approached our survey. We have a couple of hypotheses that we're testing in our research, but the most important one is whether or not the e-commerce platform will become the digital platform for all channels.