IDC Retail Insights: Top 10 retail predictions for 2015

Framingham, Mass. --By 2017, three times as many retailers as now will explicitly underpin their customer and operations strategies on 3rd platform technologies. That’s one of IDC Retail Insights’ top 10 worldwide retail predictions for 2015. IDC revealed the predictions during a Web conference, IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Retail Agenda 2015 Predictions.



The top 10 predictions from the IDC FutureScape for Worldwide Retail FutureScape are:



1. By 2017, three times as many retailers as now will explicitly pin their customer and operations strategies on 3rd platform technologies.



2. In 2015, CIOs will invest in omni-channel integration technologies as a top priority to support growth in the omni-channel shopper sales premium of 30%.



3. Over the next three years, half of CIOs across the top 250 retailers will adopt omni-channel IT governance fit for a 3rd platform era to combat shadow IT.



4. By 2016, the top 150 retailers will improve their return on investment (ROI) on hyper-personal loyalty based on unified customer engagement.



5. By 2018, 60% of omni-channel retailers will have launched customer mobile payment initiatives to enhance existing ecommerce, loyalty, and in-store mobile point of sale (MPOS) investments.



6. As cyber attacks increase, 50% of the top 250 retailers will have reduced exposure and loss by more than 50% by the end of 2016 with intelligent sense and respond security strategies.



7. By the end 2016, product intelligence (PI) will inform 80% of the top ten e-commerce retailers' pricing decisions and drive mainstream adoption of high-velocity pricing.



8. By 2018, on demand socially networked delivery services (including Uber, EBay Now, Shutl, Deliv, Postmates, Instacart, Amazon, and Alibaba) will perform 90% of all intra-day direct-to-consumer deliveries.



9. By the end of 2015, at least 25 retailers with location-based services will increase same shopper sales impacted by location-based services (LBS) by 5% via analytics-driven agile engagement and operations.



10. By 2016, even as private brand growth flattens in the U.S., consumer driven private brand product innovation will drive a 10% improvement in customer visit frequency.



"Relentless technology innovation underpins consumers' participatory behavior and expectations," said Leslie Hand, VP of IDC Retail Insights. “The most successful retailers will find opportunities by putting mobility, analytics, cloud, and social to work in their customer and operations strategies, adopting omni-channel integration technologies and IT governance, unifying customer engagement for hyper-personalized loyalty, adopting product intelligence for marketing and competitive insight, employing location-based services via analytics driven agile engagement and operations, utilize socially-networked on-demand delivery services, and gain share with private label merchandise.”



To access an audio replay of the Web conference, please click here.