Physical stores will continue as the main driver of retailsales and store IT investment will be a key priority
A recent study released by Openbravo reveals that IT investment priorities in retail are focused on cross-channel, mobile and cloud capabilities better adapted to the new industry challenges. Also, despite the ongoing rapid growth of online retail, physical stores will continue to be the main driver of total retail sales for several more years to come. 89% of total sales in developed markets and 95% in emerging markets still happen in physical stores. The new cross-channel reality however, forces retailers to give physical stores a totally new role and therefore provide them with new solutions. As a result, 79% of retailers have increased their store IT budget, this year, which seems to be a trend that will continue in the coming years. And here mobile POS is getting more importance with an expected increase by a factor of 3 according to the same study.
To succeed in these new market dynamics the Openbravo Commerce Platform provides a state-of-the-art web and mobile point of sale allied with comprehensive back-office functionality that helps retailers to provide a better shopping experience, higher merchandise agility, efficient online channel integration, seamless supply chain operations, and fully embedded analytics.
With thissolution retailers can compete more effectively by preparing their physical stores for theirnew strategic role to become a seamless step in a cross-channel world.
A list of existing customers in different subsectors like PT. Bintang Indo Jaya (Rotiboy), Supplies Now Inc, Escapade Esports, Keeprs, OrchidisJardin, Halsted, BUT, KhayalAlwataniya or London Business Group have already adopted Openbravo solutions and have improved store operations, achieved higher merchandise agility, increased supply chain operations efficiency and can now get higher visibility into business performance.
Companies like Home’s Up from GroupeAdeo are strongly progressing in omni-channel by using the Openbravo Commerce Platform as the framework for a new powerful Order Management System (OMS), which integrates all their online channels and physical stores. This list is getting larger by adding big operations such as the recent La Europea in Mexico, a national wine and spirits market leader with 48 stores and more than 20,000 products.
“This study has reinforced our strategic commitment to the industry and, in particular, the relevance of our mobile point of sale as a differentiating solution embedded in a superior Commerce Platform. Nowadays, there isn´t a similar web and mobile solution in the market which is also able to offer,for example, proven offline capability to work in areas where internet connectivity remains poor. With regards toour roadmap priorities, in 2014 we will continue to invest to further enhance our functional footprint as well as ourpowerful analytics module. For example, we will be informing the market shortly about new upcoming cross-channel capabilitiesand improved customer-centric functionalities. These also include the interest in strategic deals with other leading companies in this field – either software or hardware providers- that help to improve our offer and to reinforce our positioning”, said Ismael Ciordia, CTO and Product Management Director at Openbravo.
