First Annual Shopper Experience Study

Less than two years ago, Steven Skinner of Cognizant published an article about the 10 future shopper mega-trends resulting from an exclusive consumer study on the future of retailing and the impact of shopper empowerment.

To gather this information, RIS News teamed with Cognizant to publish the "First Annual Shopper Experience Study: Changing Priorities, Resetting Expectations". Over 2000 participants were polled to learn the likes and dislikes of the retail shopping experience.

Now - 16 months later - it's amazing to see how many of their findings have moved into the mainstream. Why is this important to you? Because retailers who don't adapt to these changes are putting themselves at a disadvantage.

Sales and Product Information via Mobile Phone
Shoppers will opt-in to networks that send them content-rich messages about their products, prices, promotions and special services.

Taking the Store to the Shopper
Retailers will bring their full arsenal of capabilities to the shopper, regardless of location, whether the shopper is in the store, at home, or walking in the park.

Distributed Order Management Integrating All Retail Channels
All Enterprises will integrate order management across the enterprise to provide one view of customer orders regardless of the way they were purchased.

Mobile Shopping Comes of Age
Talked about since the turn of the century, this trend will be fueled by shopper acceptance, new technologies, increased network bandwidth, and retailer adoption that will increasingly become virtual.

Social Media and Product Development Collide
Product life-cycles will be integrated with social media feedback to improve relevance, increase speed to market, and reduce costs associated with creating products. Shoppers will provide ideas for new product development and will help determine how existing products can be improved.

Does any of this sound familiar? They have all come to pass. If you haven't managed your brick and mortar store to take advantage of these changes, this should be first on your list in the upcoming year.

Check tomorrow's blog for the remaining five trends that are now part of the retailing landscape.

Tale to you soon  ~Norma