Tech Guest Viewpoint: Digital convergence gets interesting

RSR has been tracking retailers' e-commerce strategies for more than five years. During that time we’ve seen interest in a major platform refresh, the introduction of mobile and social as e-commerce considerations, as well as convergence – where retailers increasingly view mobile and other non-commerce online activities in the context of their overall "digital" strategy, with their e-commerce platform as the centerpiece.



Digital convergence has not yet been achieved – it takes only a stroll through a retailer's online touchpoints to see how disconnected their digital strategy really is. However, the intent is clearly there.



Where things get interesting is not in whether retailers will achieve their goals of understanding consumers' cross-channel journeys, establishing one owner of the customer experience, or converging the digital experience onto their e-commerce. It's not even in how they will get there.



Where things get interesting is when we start to look at what form this convergence will ultimately take – because it increasingly looks like digital convergence means different things to different types of retailers.



As demonstrated in our new e-commerce study, “Digital Divergence: The Future of Digital Commerce,” a quick look at the channels operated by retailers of different verticals shows some of those differences.



Fashion and boutique retailers are least likely to report operating social sites or mobile commerce, while hospitality and fast moving consumer goods retailers (think grocers) are least likely to operate a traditional e-commerce site, for example.



And when retailers end up operating different sets of channels, their overall strategic priorities for digital also differ significantly For example, even though hard goods retailers are the most digitally connected, they are also most interested in pursuing a strategy that blends stores and digital, rather than focus on one over the other.



In contrast, fashion retailers, who are the least likely to be digital, are more divided than their peers, with a majority split between digital vs. stores rather than blending both. And FMCG retailers, latecomers to the digital space even today, are still more likely than their peers to be focused purely on stores.



The differences by revenue are even more dramatic (A wide majority of the smallest retailers see only a digital future for themselves, while larger retailers place more importance on a blended approach between digital and stores. For the smallest retailers, this approach makes sense – their battles for customers will be won or lost in the digital space, not at the store shelves where their lack of scale makes it very difficult to compete against lower-priced rivals.



So even as retailers increasingly agree that they need to have a converged digital strategy, they are moving farther and farther apart on what that strategy actually needs to look like.