Survey: Retailers investing in omnichannel, but profits elusive

Scottsdale, Ariz. - Retailers and consumer goods manufacturers are spending to improve their omnichannel sales capabilities. While this may not be surprising given the current business environment, a new report prepared for JDA Software Group Inc. by PwC, “The Omnichannel Fulfillment Imperative,” reveals that only 16% of companies say, the present time, they can fulfill omnichannel demand profitably.



A full 67% of respondents reported that these costs are growing as they increase their focus on selling across channels. Survey respondents reported their highest costs associated with omni-channel selling as:



• Handling returns from online and store orders (cited by 71% of respondents)

• Shipping directly to the customer (67%)

• Shipping to the store for customer pick-up (59%)



When asked to rank their top initiatives for improving business operations, CEOs’ number one choice (57%) was spending capital on creating new customer experiences. Similarly, when asked to rank strategic growth enablers for the year, reducing/reformatting physical store footprints to focus on expanding the ecommerce business was the top choice at 53%.



These CEOs are planning to invest an average of 29% of their total capital expenditures for 2015 on improving their omnichannel fulfillment performance. The fulfillment capability most cited as needing attention was transportation and logistics, named by 88% of CEOs as a priority for the future. The second capability CEOs will focus on is improving inventory availability to fill orders, cited by 8%.