Traditional scaling of retail businesses no longer provides the advantage it once did as startups are able to use Amazon and sell to the world at a fraction of the cost. Not enough retailers are thinking about the front-end experience and how to ignite customer sales through 1:1 interaction and seamless customer experiences; instead, they are looking at the back-end supply chain and cost.
The cause of this upheaval is mostly due to the growing retail influence of GenY/Millennials. This demographic, which will wield $2.5 trillion in spending power by 2020, "expects only the smallest of differences between online and offline," and "omni-channel retail experiences where the customer is in the center of the engagement," the paper states.
The paper delves into solutions for retailers and cites examples of some who already "get it" by truly understanding and engaging with a rapidly changing consumer, delivering satisfying, rewarding and value-creating experiences wherever and whenever the consumer wants to buy. The path to success is personalization in the form of data fusion, real time decision making, knowing and creating a conversation with shoppers, and being predictive.