Technology

Many retailers unprepared to manage digital operations

Photo by istock.com

October 5, 2022

While the number of digital assets and digital orders is expected to grow 24% and 16% respectively next year, just 32% of retailers believe they will be effective in managing digital assets over the next 12 months

That's a prime finding from a survey conducted in partnership with Fluent Commerce, commercetools and Contentstack called "Digital Complexity: Thriving in Unpredictable Times."

"As digital demand regresses to the mean, and with increasing macroeconomic uncertainty, the fight for the shopper dollar will intensify over the next 12 months. Delivering on the fundamentals of inventory availability and anywhere fulfillment is critical and there is still a lot of work to be done in this area. Building a personalized and relevant shopper experience is where the leaders are focused," Gaurav Pant, chief insights officer, Incisiv, said in a press release on the findings.

Additional findings include:

• 81% of retailers expect their product returns to increase.
• 69% of retailers will increase their online SKUs.
• 67% of retailers will increase the number of digital assets they utilize.
• 65% of retailers expect the number of store fulfilled digital orders to increase.
• 46% of retailers stated they will be effective in managing the growth of their product returns.
• 43% of retailers stated they will be effective in managing their online SKU growth.
• 35% of retailers stated they will be effective in managing their store order fulfillment.
• 39% of retailers stated their current store fulfillment platform will not meet their needs.
• 40% of retailers stated their personalization platform won't meet their needs.
• 42% retailers stated their product catalog system won't meet their needs.
• 43% of retailers stated their content management system won't meet their needs.

"There's more to running a successful business than just ensuring you're two steps ahead of having the products consumers want and need. They need the flexibility and scalability to provide the experiences customers want today and tomorrow," Michael Scholz, VP, product and customer marketing, commercetools, said in the release.