According to a survey of 150 UK retailers, conducted by retail consulting company Martec and sponsored by JDA Software, up to 40 percent of sales are expected to be transacted online in the future. Data shows that online sales are forecasted to account for between 30 and 40 percent of total sales for many mass market and department stores in the future. In 2012, the average proportion of online sales has reached 7.3 percent of total sales, up from 6.3 percent during the previous year.
The report also indicates that mobile commerce has become more prevalent for many retailers, with 49 percent stating they were already supporting transactions made via smartphones and tablets, while 13 percent have mentioned that plan to do so in the future. The proportion of sales made via m-commerce has increased during 2012, accounting for 2.9 percent of sales.
Research unveils that IT staff will continue to spend on developing a multi-channel, online commerce strategy as their top priority. Investment in store systems was next in line, followed by development of CRM systems and supply chain management in joint third place. Further trends in the retail sector reveal that cloud-based applications are becoming popular, with 35 percent of retailers claiming to have a current cloud strategy, while 28 percent were looking to do so in future.
E-commerce was the most popular single application to be hosted in the cloud, accounting for 9 percent of retailers, with 17 percent having some sort of minor cloud applications such as expenses or project management in place.
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