Leading retailers are investing in the IT transformation of their stores at an unprecedented rate according to new research by IHL Group. Not only is store IT investment growth greater than overall IT growth, but retail sales leaders are investing in store IT at a growth rate 70% higher than average retailers and moving further ahead.

Stored Advantage – Why Leading Retailers are Doubling Down on Stores is the first retail research study from IHL Group for 2019. Representing responses from over 220 retail brands, it looks at the IT investment plans and priorities for retailers in the next 18-24 months. 

“Retail leaders recognize that their advantage over Amazon is their stores and these stores require transformation in many ways to compete in the future,“ said Greg Buzek, President of IHL Group . “Retail used to be about Location, Location, Location. This is simply not true anymore. Retail is now about is about Location, Experience, and Execution. Whether it is a traditional bricks and mortar purchase, or the consumer chooses to buy online for pickup in store (BOPIS), seamless store execution through order completion is critical.”

According to the research , leading retailers are racing ahead in investments to empower associates with better tools and optimizing order fulfillment execution at the store level. And while online sales continue to grow, leading retailers realize that more than 80% of all retail will still have a store execution component even 5 years from now. 

The top IT priorities of retailers for 2019 include IT investments for the following:
  • Personalizing the Customer Experience
  • Empowering Store Associates
  • CRM/Customer Relationship Solutions
  • Refreshing POS Infrastructure
  • Updating Store WAN/LAN Infrastructure
  • IT Transformation

The research also highlights investment in emerging technologies. 
The top 3 emerging technologies retailers getting the most budget for 2019 are:
  • Location-based Marketing
  • AI/Machine Learning
  • IoT

While leading retailers are investing in these areas, sales leaders are investing in these technologies at significantly higher rates:
  • Edge computing (91% higher)
  • SD-WAN technologies (65% higher)
  • Microservices Architecture (47% higher than average retailers)

Available immediately on the company website, Stored Advantage – Why Leading Retailers are Doubling Down on Stores looks at the planned priorities and investment areas for North American retailers. It provides insight into 2019 sales opportunities for key technologies like POS, mobile POS, customer engagement, and emerging technologies and includes retailer’s budget plans, where they are increasing and reducing spend. Finally, it looks at the speed in which retailers are adopting different technologies to personalize the customer journey across all retail channels. 

This is a MUST READ study for vendors as they go into the NRF Show with the latest data on purchase trends and retailer preferences and needs for 2019. 

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