According to research by Accenture, retailers are still not delivering the cross-platform experience that customers expect.
The survey also found that only 40% of customers confirm that it is easy to make purchases through mobile devices, with 38% of customers feeling that the shopping experience in the bricks and mortar stores needs a big upgrade.
Managing director of Accenture’s UK Retail Practice, Fiona O’Hara said: “While physical and digital commerce is converging rapidly, UK retailers are still behind the curve in terms of their mobile and in-store offerings.
“The fact that UK shoppers want to check inventory on their mobiles, order out-of-stock products and have promotions sent to them while in-store, suggests immense potential for retailers to enhance investments in mobile applications that bridge a customer’s online and offline experience seamlessly.”
Whether visiting a store or shopping online via laptop, desktop or mobile it has been made very clear that customers expect a unified approach to retail.
The omni channel trend has led to many retailers updating their stores and moving to a more showroom strategy, enabling stores to be an extension of the retailer’s digital offering.
This therefore means more customers are expecting to use their phones in-store, with 14% wanting to scan products in shops and 13% wanting promotions to be sent to their phone while they are shopping in a store.
15% of Accenture’s survey participants expect in-store Wi-Fi, but many stores are not offering this basic essential to draw customers in.
O’Hara added: “Our findings clearly show that customers expect increasing cohesion of shopping experiences across all channels.
“Retailers need to take this into account when investing in sales-driving initiatives. Building capabilities such as digital marketing and analytics will become key in the next few years, to increase customer traffic and boost loyalty. We see a few retailers doing this already – and they are exhibiting a significant edge over their competitors.”