RetailNext Study Shows Persistent Gap in Perceptions and Expectations Between Shoppers and Retailers

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- RetailNext Inc., the worldwide expert and market leader in retail analytics for optimizing shopper experiences at brick-and-mortar retail stores, today released survey results that show shopper and retailer perceptions and expectations are not aligned, and that many retail stores lack the essential technology to measure and apply shopper data across all channels.

Forrester Consulting completed the January 2016 commissioned study on behalf of RetailNext, and conducted in-depth surveys with 500 consumers and 150 retail decision-makers in the United States and United Kingdom to develop the findings. The full study, Real-Time Data Drives the Future of Retail, is available for free download at http://retailnext.net/benchmark/real-time-data-drives-the-future-of-retail/.

"Today's shoppers have tremendous information and choice at their fingertips, and with this access to information they are quickly and not-so-quietly reinventing their shopping experiences, and in turn the retail industry," said Bridget Johns, head of marketing and customer experience at RetailNext. "This new study not only emphasizes that retailers must rethink what makes for exceptional in-store experiences, but also shows a growing need to blend brand operations cross-channel to better reflect the new shopping journeys on which shoppers now embark."

Key Findings

• Physical retail is alive and persisting – and increasingly influenced by digital. Today's new shopping journeys recognize the value of physical retail and its particular set of competitive advantages, such as the ability to experience products and services and interact with sales associates. However, shoppers also require seamless cross-channel experiences, and only 49 percent of consumer respondents feel they receive consistent experiences across all channels.
• Retailers don't understand what matters most to shoppers. Retailers are experiencing a disconnect between strategy and tactics and what shoppers want most, such as consistent pricing across channels and the ability to make returns regardless of the channel where the initial purchase was made. Seventy-nine percent of shoppers reported pricing consistency as a critical or important requirement, while just 52 percent of retailers agreed.
• The role of the sales associate is evolving. Today's digitally-empowered, smartphone-wielding shoppers expect on-demand sales associates who are facilitators of exceptional shopping experiences. However, just 29 percent of consumer respondents feel sales associates are knowledgeable and helpful.
• Retailers are not measuring customer behavior, especially in-store. Retailers understand and agree that in-store technology drives both operational excellence and the overall digital customer experience. However, retailers overwhelmingly struggle to measure customer behavior, and surprisingly few reported the use of Key Performance Indicator (KPI) metrics in-store, with just 33 percent of retailers reporting they always measure conversion rates.

In addition to sharing the survey results and findings through the final study and an accompanying infographic, RetailNext is also highlighting the survey at the National Retail Federation's annual The BIG Show in New York City, January 17-19, both at its exhibit in booth #3453 as well as the January 17 Big !deas session, "In-Store Analytics:  How to Organize Internally for Maximum Impact," facilitated by Shelley E. Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at RetailNext, and featuring Kent Bassett, vice president of corporate and retail consumer insights at VF Corporation, and Jeff Fisher, global store experience & visual merchandising director for Sunglass Hut at Luxottica Group.

About RetailNext
The first technology platform to bring e-commerce style shopper analytics to brick-and-mortar stores and malls, RetailNext is the pioneer focusing entirely on optimizing the in-store shopping experience. Through its hardware-agnostic SaaS platform, RetailNext enables retailers to collect and correlate data from the broadest available set of data sources, and delivers retailers, malls and brands deep, actionable insights into shoppers and their behaviors as they navigate through their multichannel shopping journeys. More than 250 retailers and brands worldwide have adopted RetailNext solutions to glean the insights necessary to improve customer experience, increase same-store sales, reduce theft and eliminate unnecessary costs.

RetailNext measures the behavior of more than three billion shoppers per year by collecting data from over a hundred thousand sensors in retail stores and analyzing trillions of data points annually. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., RetailNext is a growing global brand operating in over 50 countries. For more information, please visit www.retailnext.net.

RetailNext Inc. and RetailNext are trademarks of RetailNext Inc. in the United States.

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SOURCE RetailNext

Related Links

http://www.retailnext.net