Retail stores have a problem. The 21^st century is nearly 1/5^th over, and today’s stores still basically resemble what they looked and felt like at the turn of the century. Meanwhile, leaps and bounds have been made in the online realm to make that shopping experience more interesting and, just as importantly: more convenient.

The good news? Retailers are well aware. The bad news? In our newest Store Report (its 9^th annual publishing), retailers tell us that most have a lot of work to do before they can tackle the problem in any kind of meaningful way. Highlights of the research:

• In order to return stores to relevance, retailers are focused primarily on an improved version of the current in-store employee. This is their focused attack to compete with online channels’ increasing popularity, and a trend we explore in depth.
• Retailers know their biggest opportunities are to educate and empower employees. But they also now realize they must find new ways to make those employees more productive. This is excellent news.
• Unfortunately, retailers tell us that their Store Operations management has grown accustomed to the way things are, the enterprise is hesitant to add more to store employees’ plates, and it’s not clear that any technology installation beyond the obvious will deliver a quantifiable benefit. These are just a few of the Organizational Inhibitors that stand in retailers’ way.
• Within the Technology Enablers section of the report, we find out just how long a road retailers still have to travel. Despite their best intentions – and their rapidly increasing understanding of the problem – just over half of retailers see a lot of value in employee-facing technologies, with roughly the same number having either implemented or budgeted for these technologies. We are still a long ways off from physical stores that bring a strong fight to the online experience.

Based on our data, we also offer several in-depth and pragmatic suggestions on how retailers should proceed. These recommendations can be found in the Bootstrap Recommendations portion of the report, and we hope you take this time to read the full findings. They are available here.