In an age where every retail conversation ends in a mashed-up blend of both the physical and virtual worlds, it’s vitally important to understand what retailers are doing – specifically – online. And while 2017 has seen a great deal of press around the death of the store as we know it, the sheer fact remains that traditional retailers treat stores and digital channels very differently. We wanted to know exactly how.

So this summer we’ve been surveying retailers on what they see happening online. We published the resulting report just last week.

The following are just some of the highlights of what they told us:

• For the best performers, it’s all about trying to be where the consumer is already headed. One out of every two Retail Winners says it’s what keeps them up at night. By comparison, lesser performing retailers continue to be consumed by a never-ending price war.
• Everyone says that “personalization ” is the key to making online different than stores. But when pressed to identify the exact types of things they’d like to personalize most, customized browsing, targeted promotions, and a personalized home page all take top honors – all of which leverage a shopper’s past behavior. Is there room for predictive analytics? According to retailers: not yet, a seriously missed opportunity.
• Overall, retailers are still largely struggling with the same process challenges internally this year as last. But there have been some significant shifts in two major areas: digital and the supply chain, and customer understanding. We delve into these in depth within the report.
• And within the Technology Enablerssection we see that retailer adoption and future interest in digital commerce “infrastructure ” technologies suggest a big replacement cycle is looming. With more and more transactions concluding in the digital space, this is a BIG time for tech investments in everything from the eCommerce platform to customer identity management tools to integration of content and product information online.

Based on our data, we also offer several in-depth and pragmatic suggestions on how retailers should proceed. These recommendations can be found in the Bootstrap Recommendations portion of the full report.

We highly recommend you check it out.