Retailers See Digital Convergence As Still Out Of Reach, Despite Their Best Intentions

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Report finds that retailers want to converge their selling channels  but still face obstacles.

Retail Systems Research, LLC has released its findings from its 2016 Benchmark Report, Digital Divergence: The Future Of Digital Commerce. The report, based on a survey of 120 retailers, found that retailers believe digital convergence is out of reach, despite their best intentions. And, perhaps even more startling, it increasingly looks like digital convergence means different things to different types of retailers.

"Digital convergence has not yet been achieved – it takes only a stroll through a retailer's online touchpoints to see how disconnected their digital strategy really is,” says Nikki Baird, managing partner at RSR Research and co-author of the report. "However, things get particularly interesting when we start to look at what form this convergence will ultimately take – because it increasingly looks like digital convergence means different things to different types of retailers."

According to the report, retailers’ top business challenges focus on maintaining growth rates and keeping up with evolving consumer shopping patterns. As retailers increasingly have confidence that they can predict consumer demand, they are looking to drive overall growth in digital channels.

Among the key findings of the study are that fashion and boutique retailers are least likely to report operating social sites or mobile commerce, while hospitality and fast moving consumer goods retailers like grocers are least likely to operate a traditional eCommerce site.

And even though hard goods retailers are the most digitally connected, most likely to operate mobile, social, and eCommerce channels all together, they are also most interested in pursuing a strategy that blends stores and digital, rather than focus on one over the other.

Meanwhile, fashion retailers, who are the least likely to be digital, are more divided than their peers, with a majority split between digital vs. stores rather than blending both, with FMCG retailers, still more likely than their peers to be focused purely on stores.

There is also disjunction by size, with a wide majority of the smallest retailers envisioning just a digital future, while larger retailers emphasize a blended approach between digital and stores.  The report demonstrates that “even as retailers increasingly agree that they need to have a converge digital strategy, they are moving farther and farther apart on what that strategy actually needs to look like.”

“The Digital Divergence: The Future Of Digital Commerce” report provides analysis of the business drivers, opportunities, and organizational constraints surrounding retailers’ eCommerce operations and  offers baseline recommendations for navigating this new realm. The report is part of RSR Research's ongoing efforts to provide market intelligence on retail technology trends, and is sponsored by SAS.