IT leaders speak out: The state of Unified Commerce in softlines retail

Keeping pace with customer expectations is difficult for all retailers, but perhaps no more so than in softlines retail. Shoppers expect consistent, informed and empowered experiences as they cross to channels to discover, compare, try on and purchase products. They expect web interactions to be as personalized and informative as store experiences and they expect store interactions to be as informed, efficient and connected as online experiences.

It certainly seems as though Unified Commerce technology should be as important to the IT strategies for specialty apparel, accessories, footwear and luxury retailers as it is for any category. If not more so.

To validate that suspicion, we partnered with Bain & Company to survey 120 IT executives from softlines retailers in the US, the UK and Canada. We attempted to evaluate their perception of, their current investments in and their near-term investment plans for Unified Commerce technology. This report documents the findings of that survey and outlines their collective opinions about the best path to achieving Unified Commerce.