retail

Forrester: Enable Consumers At All Touchpoints

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Online retail is set to grow but marketers won't keep up if they don't figure out how to integrate online with offline efforts, per a study from Boston-based Forrester Research. The firm says the U.S. and Europe will both see double-digit growth in Web retail over the next five years, with U.S. online retail growing at a 10% compound annual growth rate during that five-year period to reach nearly $249 billion.

"Much of the overall retail sector's growth in both the U.S. and the E.U. over the next five years will come from the Internet," said Forrester Research Vice President and Principal Analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

She says that to capture the growth potential of online retail, marketers will have to have a multichannel strategy that works for consumers whose style of shopping is to hop among brick-and-mortar, Web retail, and mobile points of purchase.

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"The retail innovators over the next five years will demonstrate customer enablement across all touchpoints, not just via a PC-based Web browser," she said.

Unfortunately, per the firm's data, marketers aren't doing that just yet. Forrester says 82% of U.S. online consumers are satisfied with buying experiences that began and ended in a store, but that only 61% are happy when their research started online and ended with a store purchase.

In Europe, more online use, better access, and greater promotion by retailers will drive the number of online shoppers from 141 million in 2009 to 190 million by 2014, with the average spend per online shopper going from €483 last year to €601 in 2014, the firm predicts.

Books, event tickets and clothing are the top three categories purchased online in the majority of Western Europe.

In the U.S., predicts Forrester, Web shopping will account for 8% of total retail sales by 2014, with apparel, footwear, and accessories; consumer electronics; and consumer hardware and software accounting for 40% of total online retail sales.

And by that year, 53% of total retail sales in the U.S., whether executed online or offline, will be influenced by e-commerce.

1 comment about "Forrester: Enable Consumers At All Touchpoints".
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  1. Kevin Horne from Verizon, March 15, 2010 at 6:08 p.m.

    And in other bold predictions, Forrester today announced that Wednesday will follow Tuesday.

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