For years, a debate has raged as to whether online or offline channels benefit from advantages over their counterparts – and if so, are retailers currently operating in what is fundamentally an unfair playing field in the fight for consumer spend?
The debate, however, is not as simple as online versus offline. Today we have traditional retailers with both physical store portfolios and digital sales platforms, global online retailers which are able to disrupt markets to sell internationally, and a consumer that is increasingly expecting a channel agnostic shopping experience. The retail sector is in a state of transition as retailers react to rapidly improving technology to keep pace with ever-shifting consumer demands.
At the latest quarterly meeting of the KPMG/Ipsos Retail Think Tank (RTT), members discussed just how ‘level’ the playing field between online and offline is. As the sector moves towards a more channel agnostic future, they questioned if that imbalance exists, whether it even matters, and what the implications of that future are on today’s retailers?
NAM Implications:
- In other words, for a leading-edge update on the online/offline combination, see this White Paper.
- But only useful if used to establish a basis for the online-offline bias for your business…
- …and to crystalise your trade strategy going forward…
- …post-lockdown…
