Merchandising shifts to a customer-centric focus
New consumer shopping behaviors have made the merchandising process infinitely more difficult.
Consumers just don’t shop the way they did a few years, months, or in some cases, even weeks ago. Therefore it comes without surprise that retailers would cry out for a better understanding of consumer demand. Analytics to measure consumers’ paths to purchase (and post-purchase) behaviors offer an ability to do just that (Figure).
Retailers also place a high importance on the ability to forecast based on the new shopper’s fickle demands. Perhaps most interestingly, however, is that retailers place tremendous value on tools that could unify the price and promotions they are running across all of their touchpoints with consumers.
Moreover, they’d like to be able to understand the effects of these changes before they are rolled out, while still in the modeling stage. This is highly encouraging, as, in the past, retailers have relied far too heavily on endless promotions — often with no insight into their true cost/effect — to create excitement around the Brand.
Merchandising 2016: Big Changes Coming contains analysis of the business drivers, opportunities, and organizational constraints surrounding retailers' merchandising strategies. The report also offers baseline recommendations for navigating the future of merchandising, particularly as retailers struggle with shifting from a product-centric merchandising organization to a customer-centric one.
The report is part of RSR Research's ongoing efforts to provide market intelligence on retail technology trends, and is sponsored by SAP, and can be downloaded here.
