NRF 2019: Customers expect digital store experience

A dominant theme of NRF 2019, taking place this week in New York, has been retailers redoubling digital store transformation efforts, notes Eagle Eye’s Miya Knights.

In a blog post, she comments: “This year has continued to see retail leaders shift their focus from the strategic impact of e-commerce on their businesses to its direct impact on the store and how it plays into the end-to-end customer experience.”

Knights flagged up Jeremy King, Walmart Chief Technology Officer, who explained that two years ago the US grocer merged its store and e-commerce technology teams. IT and tech responsibilities were instead split.

“We needed someone to focus on the internal business and then somebody else to focus on the retail side,” King said, with the latter describing his own role. “On the retail side our systems focus on the customer. For example, our Walmart Pay systems in our stores know if you’re a Walmart.com or store customer. We need to provide a single view of everything within the company to the customer.”

“As customers change the ways they shop, they change the way they  use technology,” he added. “It’s no longer acceptable to just offer a digital experience online, at home. They want a digital store experience too.”

Read the full blog post here.

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