Report: E-commerce spreads across the enterprise

Walnut Creek, Calif. – Retailers increasingly see e-commerce as a cross-channel or omni-channel functions, rather than as a standalone process. According to the new RSR Research E-Commerce Benchmark Report 2013, 68% of retailers strongly agree or agree that the future of online commerce lies more with cross-channel or merged capabilities, with another 21% having neutral feelings and only 11% disagreeing or strongly disagreeing.



In addition, 66% of retailers strongly agree or agree that their e-commerce platform will become their digital platform across all channels. Twenty-five percent are neutral, and only 9% disagree or actively disagree. Other notable findings include:

• Retailers see uncertain consumer demand (47%) and maintaining growth rates (46%) as the top business challenges to e-commerce.

• Cost-effective shipping and fulfillment (51%), understanding how different consumer segments engage (49%) and optimizing inventory deployment across all channels (45%) are the most popular operational e-commerce challenges.

• Retailers identify the top three opportunities to overcome e-commerce challenges as improving search and browse capabilities (48%), improving fulfillment processes (36%) and providing richer product detail such as photo and video (35%).

• Twenty-one percent of respondents have already implemented their e-commerce platform as the company’s POS system and as the mobile platform.