Multichannel retailing trends in 2014

If you've never heard Ian Jindal from Internet Retailing present, then I suggest you get yourself along to one of the many digital and eCommerce events that he either runs or participates in.

As part of my involvement at the ScotlandIS Scottish eCommerce Forum today, I saw him give the keynote below. What was supposed to be an outline of the trends in multichannel retail for the next year actually became more of a philosophical view of the meeting (AKA a clash) of the human condition with the always-on & connected paradigm of the world wide web.

Just what was needed to kick-start an entire day (and evening) of thought-provoking presentations and discussions on the future of eCommerce north of the border.

 

Ps258 2014 Trends in multichannel retail - keynote for ScotlandIS, February 2014 from Ian Jindal

eCommerce in Scotland

As friends and readers of this blog will know, I've now relocated my business and family to Scotland. I've therefore taken an obvious interest in the online retail scene north of the border.

The UK is now a world leader in the field of eCommerce and over the last few years has seen double-digit growth (despite the worst recession in living memory). Furthermore recent figures from the Boston Consulting Group have predicted that the UK’s Internet economy will continue to expand at around 11% per year for the next four year. This means it should reach £221bn by 2016, or a whopping 12.4% of the UK's GDP!

However it is clear that (except for a few notable exceptions) that Scotland does not have an eCommerce economy to fully match that of other parts of the UK. In fact, in a recent report by Scottish Enterprise it said that Scotland had the lowest proportion of any nation or region in terms of advertised IT jobs mentioning eCommerce..... just 2% compared to 11% in London and 10% in the East Midlands.

But ecommerce is a huge part of business today and is a growing industry within the Scottish economy in 2012.  It also contributes an estimated 200,000 jobs, worth £31 billion in sales (of which about £8 billion was actual sales using websites, compared to other online transactions such as direct B2B connections).

Clearly there is a lot of ground to make up. Or put another way, there's a huge eCommerce opportunity in Scotland for those companies who want to move into this market.

IRIS : Internet retailing in store

Congratulations to Internet Retailing Magazine and Expo for their introduction of the term IRIS which is short for Internet Retailing in-Store.
Not only is it a great term that is easy to remember, but the eye-based connotation is also clever and relevant.
http://www.internetretailingexpo.com/

These days the use of mobile devices to shop online has grown to become a major revenue channel for all but the most resistant of retailers. But as more and more people shop with their smartphone in stores, and use other connected devices when they are there, then the in-store Internet retailing experience is going to become of increasing importance.
Note: connected commerce happens anywhere you can get data, not just at home on the sofa via a fast broadband connection (as I'm sure a lot if ecommerce traders still believe).

The Government's High Street Review revealed that retail spending has fallen by 42% in town centres and is forecast to fall further to 40% by 2014. So one could therefore argue that the more recent developments in online retailing such as click & collect now need to connect the digital experience with the physical one. Not just to increase the revenue for online traders, but as a potential way of boosting the stores income too.

Critical of standards

I've recently posted about the new BSI guidelines / PAS (Publically Available Standard) 124 for company website standards, which provides a procedural framework for implementing and managing a company website.

Although the framework within PAS124 sets out to provide various business benefits, such as:

• reduce the risk of doing something wrong
• maximise investment
• improve speed-to-market
• provide a suggested governance structure

......this new standard hasn't necessarily met with universal approval:
http://www.internetretailing.net/news/comment-bsi-standard-for-the-web

However, I do feel that Marcus from Internet Retailing may have missed the point about the purpose of this standard, he may have a point about it being charged for. Surely this can only hinder its adoption?