Retail technology and software solutions provider CitiXsys released its first omnichannel report in Australia and New Zealand last month, which revealed a gap between ANZ shoppers’ expectations and what ANZ retailers are offering to consumers.
“This report confirmed that ANZ retailers were not meeting customers’ expectations, especially when it comes to providing a personalised shopping experience as well as seamless services across all channels,” said Paula Da Silva, SVP for CitiXsys in ANZ.
The comparison report produced by CitiXsys in the US and Europe shows that from the consumer’s point of view, Australia, the US and Europe are similar, with shoppers digitally savvy and tending to have the same shopping habits and expectations.
The main difference comes from the way retailers in these regions address the shoppers’ expectations, with the American and European retailers said to be doing a better job of providing services than those in the ANZ region. For example:
- 71 per cent of Americans interviewed think online shopping is more convenient than in-store, compared with 52 per cent of Australians interviewed, indicating that US retailers are better at offering a “great” online shopping experience.
- 79 per cent of Americans interviewed have ordered online for pick-up in-store, compared with 40 per cent of Australian shoppers.
- 22 per cent of surveyed consumers in both the US and Europe want stores to give them a more personalised experience, compared with 32 per cent of surveyed ANZ shoppers, indicating that ANZ customers are more unsatisfied with the level of personalisation in-store.
“American retailers are far more advanced than their Australian counterparts,” Ms Da Silva said. “Many elements of the shopping experience that are now normal to American consumers have only just been adopted in Australian stores, such as click-and-collect.
“European and American shoppers clearly feel that retailers are well on track to providing them with highly personalised, seamless shopping experiences, with greater percentages of Australians finding flaws in the way they shop.
“Globally, although consumers’ habits tend to evolve towards the same desires, such as hyper-personalisation, connected loyalty programs, and single view of shopping, the experience they get from retailers is, overall, lagging. Today’s shopper is an ‘omnishopper’. It’s now time for retailers to heed demand and become omnichannel themselves.”