That the famous aphorism, ‘e-tailing is here to stay,’ has become a cliche, is an understatement.
Forget the days of ebays and Amazons when e-tailing was considered as the newest kid in the block. We are referring to the second wave – the early to mid-2000s. But for few success stories, e-tailing remained just a potential trendsetter for some distant future. Then came the third wave starting from the latter part of 2000s – this time the industry woke up, not just to the possibilities, but to the realities of e-tailing.
The only way for retailers to take advantage of this oppurtunity is to achieve synergies by combining e-commerce retailing with traditional formats.
As a case in point, in 2011, Tesco, one of UK’s most successful retailer, opened its Click and Collect format, where customers can select items from its online portal and collect them from their nearest collection point.
Become aware of the pitfall
One unforeseen consequence of such omni-channel retailing is the pressure they exert on retail automation solutions, including but not limited to point of sale billing software.Should retailers ditch their existing solutions for the trendy e-commerce ones?
No. You can easily fill it up.
Here is a solution that allows retailers to manage store operations in a traditional way yet provide an online interface for order-taking.
It’s called cloud…
Just sign-up, set-up and start using it.