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South Africa’s e-commerce market has grown substantially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but its potential to double by a further 100% to 5,6% of the total retail market is possible if e-tailers fix issues with their online CX, according to findings from the third annual South African Digital Customer Experience Report.

More than 12,000 retail stores are expected to close in 2018, up from around 9,000 in 2017, according to commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. While physical retail is absolutely undergoing a seismic transformation, it’s not necessarily the apocalypse that headlines have made it out to be.

In-aisle innovation is shifting how we perceive the future of retail, opening the possibilities of what can be done to shape customer experiences. The physical retail experience seems to have become an enjoyable, entertaining and informational experience for shoppers — and for the ones who get it right, a profitable endeavor for retailers.

Gone are the days when your IT team were the only ones in the office who knew how to use technology. And with this change in tech aptitude comes a change in approach to enterprise software. A space that has historically been quite slow to evolve, 2018 is set to bring about a few changes to the status quo.

Choosing a development tool based on its popularity isn’t a bad idea. Popular tools are usually more stable, and they often have more resources and community support than less popular tools. Developer satisfaction is another key indicator of a good tool, and for the JavaScript ecosystem, I’m going to show you some significant research on both of these criteria.

Remember the days of punch cards that stores gave out to encourage customers to return, typically by offering discounts or freebies? In today’s world, the punch card has been replaced by digital identity: customers join loyalty programs by creating personal accounts on a website or app.

The demise of the physical, in-store experience has been greatly exaggerated. Consumers like to go shopping — they really do. However, to match their expectations, retailers will need to deploy emerging technologies to engage with consumers in a more intuitive and automated manner. At the same time, they must commit to investments in innovation that will enable them to more effectively forecast future supply chain/inventory and workforce requirements, which would help these businesses address their biggest frustration: understaffing.

Think of free retail WiFi as a magnifying glass that zooms in on customer behavior to learn who they are and how they act in stores. It allows you to be more adaptable when it comes to using raw data so that you can implement best practices to help boost sales. From optimizing merchandise placement to loyalty schemes, here’s how retailers can use in-store WiFi analytics.

Instagram is today’s modern catalog. You find your favorite brands presenting themselves with beautiful imagery or behind-the-scenes video clips that take you on a journey. This catalog also presents new brands that find you with more relevant information than their print predecessor ever could. But the thing that makes this experience more powerful than a catalog is the ability to actually purchase the products that excite you.

n an era when purchasing is increasingly being dominated by millennials and Gen Z, retailers can no longer rely on traditional rewards systems to drive customer loyalty. The age of membership points and retail-backed credit lines is over as the next wave of shoppers expect loyalty programs to be simple, automatic and valuable.