When we were browsing the show floor at NRF, virtually every conversation quickly turned to the challenges and opportunities “cross-channel ” has brought about in retail. But this got us thinking, were we all talking about the same thing?

Because this year’s eCommerce Report was really more of a multi-channel report: 85% of our 97 respondents operated stores. And in doing so, they revealed some surprising data points – the type of data that reveals that we’re not all – always – on the same page about the evolving role of eCommerce within the overall retail organization. Firstly, when the consumer has gone completely channel-agnostic, how can this “channel ” continued to be viewed as a channel at all? But to add to that complexity, here’s a few data points that may surprise you, too.  

Number 1: Deals of the Day are Dead. Deader than Dead.

Maybe this isn’t a “surprise ” to retailers who’ve previously used deal-of-the-day sites (only to see customers flood their store/online cart for one basement-price promotion, never to return), but we’ve never had data this strong on it before. At 16% of the total pool, retailers rate it the lowest opportunity available to them today. What’s more, by performance, the issue is even worse. Fully 0% of the best performers see any value in branded promotion with deal-of-the-day sites. In fact, Laggards are the only performance segment still assigning high value to eCommerce branded deals of the day and promotional offers. Winners have clearly moved on, recognizing that a single transaction with the consumer – and a low-cost model one at that – is not how they will engage and retain the type of loyalty needed to keep them in the game.

To pile on, when viewed by product segment, absolutely no retailers from the fashion/short lifecycle or seasonal goods segments report any interest in branded deal of the day offers. Its continuation is the sole practice of average and lagging hard goods, basics, and perishables retailers – segments where it always has and always will make the most sense. If what you’re selling rots or never changes, a deal of the day may still hold some allure. But for those selling fashion (and for those with stronger sales), the deal-of-the-day bloom is off the rose.

Number 2: Budget Isn’t Really the Issue Anymore.

When it comes to what stands in the way of forward progress, budgeting is always a primary roadblock. In an apparent turn, eCommerce budgets appear to be freeing up a bit; not only is it bumped out of the top three list, but its numbers are down from 51% last year to 38% this year. However, the challenge reveals itself in a trend that has been growing steadily over the past few years; eCommerce is not just an issue of budget for new technologies, but also an issue of having all of the resources – including the manpower retailers know they’d need to leverage all the exciting new technologies they want.

In short, retailers perceive tremendous value in many of the new breed of eCommerce technologies available to them, but even if they have the budget to buy, they lack the manpower to support them all. As we call out in the full report, it is time to be hyper-selective about which technologies they can effectively buy, with a watchful eye on the cost of those technologies beyond the purchase order. The issue unfolds in even more interesting ways when viewed by performance, size and product mix:

• Laggards are far more pressed to have discretionary budget: 54% of under-performers report budgeting challenges, compared to 14% of Double-digit Winners. It is even more of a challenge for seasonal goods retailers: 63% cite constraints on eCommerce budgets.
  
• Fashion retailers have a unique challenge in their stores: 47% report that stores don’t understand the mobile or cross-channel opportunities, a virtual non-issue for those selling perishables, hard goods, and to a lesser extent, seasonal goods. Clearly this issue will escalate for all retailers as consumer adoption of mobile spreads. Consumers are already using their mobile devices in stores when shopping for blouses and shoes, and those retailers are being forced to address their concerns sooner than later. But as the consumer’s love affair with her mobile device will undoubtedly stay its current course, how long until retailers selling food, basic goods and seasonal items are forced to adapt? The issue is also of greater importance to retailers based on size: 33% of those with sales of $1 billion and above identify it as top-three organizational inhibitor, compared to only 15% of small (less than $50 million) retailers.
  
• The smallest retailers are the quickest to cite overall budgetary constraints (60%, vs. large retailers’ 14%). For technology vendors, the emphasis in messaging to small retailers (where members of a small staff often wear many IT hats) should be the cost of non-adoption. For larger retailers? The ability to fully manage a new technology’s potential with little tax on their existing, stretched-too-thin human resources. 

Number 3: Retailers Don’t Think Mobile is Ready

Despite all the press around mobile payment initiatives, we find very few retailers strongly believe the technology will be viable this year, and of those, most are the smallest retailers with revenue under $50 million, who have become credit-card enabled through technologies like Square. At the same time, the only retailers excited about Social Media as a selling tool are Winners and Double-digit Winners. Approximately half of those retailers agree this is a valid direct selling tool. There’s a lot more in the full report – if you have a few minutes, you should follow this link to get your own, complimentary copy.