For some retail companies, the rise of the Internet and the prominence of e-commerce has been an insurmountable challenge. Others have made changes to their company’s structure and adjusted resources to react toward the changing retail landscape and accommodate for a more online-orientated consumer base. Michele Buck, president and CEO of The Hershey Company, recently made announcements of the company’s big push into e-commerce and listing online retail as a major focus and an area of growth, as reported by Business Insider.
Physical retailers are now pressured to make advancements in e-commerce technology as the online and physical markets have begun to meld together. Amazon, one of the world’s leading e-commerce platforms, has made recent acquisitions and investments into the physical market and in doing so is disrupting the landscape. Competition from Amazon can harm even the biggest and most promising companies and IPOs.
“Right now, we’re focused on partnering with retailers and investing in capabilities to unlock growth for our brands online. I believe we are in a really good position to win in an omnichannel world. Todd Tillemans, President U.S., The Hershey Company, 2017
Investment in e-commerce, especially among the retail market, has been on the rise. Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, launched their brand new e-commerce branch “Store No 8,” which will work with startups that specialize in robotics, virtual reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence to expand the company’s e-commerce efforts. Investment in offering an omnichannel shopping experience has become an increasingly popular option for businesses of all sizes. A survey conducted by LinkedIn discovered 41 percent of business owners saw omnichannel will revolutionize the market.
While some businesses are of the belief that e-commerce will encompass the entirety of the retail experience,most people prefer in-store shopping in every product category aside from “Books,” “Consumer Electronics” and “Office Supplies.” But that’s not to say that business don’t benefit when e-commerce and the in-person retail experience work in tandem.Consumers have shown an increasing tendency to conduct research online in order to compare prices and products from multiple companies before making a final purchase in-store.
Dirxion online catalogs offer businesses the ability to tap into the rising consumer preference for the omnichannel shopping experience and serves as a complementary product to any e-commerce operation. Dirxion online catalogs are versatile and optimized with HTML5 to ensure cross-platform and multi-browser performance standards are met. Customers are armed with a strong tool to allow consumers to do their own research. The search feature directs users to the exact product they’re looking for without having to search through tabs and pages of results. Customers are able to interact with linked images that open to Quick Views or iFrames of the e-commerce site. Customers can then read pictures, look through photos and even add to their cart without having to leave the online catalog.
