NRF/Forrester Survey Shows Merging of Physical and Digital Retail
Traditional and online retailing are increasingly intertwined as customers seamlessly shop across touchpoints and the industry uses both platforms to better serve them, according to the annual State of Retail Online study by the National Retail Federation and Forrester.
“This report shows more than ever that retail is retail regardless of where a sale is made or how the product is delivered,” NRF Vice President for Research Development and Industry Analysis Mark Mathews said. “Products ordered online are increasingly picked up in-store or shipped from a nearby store, and digital technology being used at bricks-and-mortar locations lets retailers help customers find what they want or make the sale even if the product is out of stock. Traditional retailers have seen the opportunities of online selling for years now, and those selling online increasingly see that stores are part of the key to success.”
Of the companies surveyed this year, 32 percent were “pureplay” online retailers while 57 percent were multichannel retailers, including traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers that also sell online.
This year’s data reveals that 43 percent of store-based retailers surveyed expect a net increase in the number of bricks-and-mortar stores they operate by the end of 2018 compared with 2017, and only 16 percent expect a net reduction. Additionally, retailers are proactively working on their real estate assets, whether testing new store formats such as opening some type of pop-up store (24 percent), and opening new warehouses or distribution centers (12 percent).
New physical locations are important because 42 percent of retailers surveyed say that faster delivery of online orders is their top customer-facing priority, and many plan to use stores to achieve that goal. Omnichannel services such as buy online, pick up in-store are an in-store priority for 21 percent, along with 15 percent that cite ship-from-store as a fulfillment priority.