RIP The Great British High Street

With the news that BT Expedite and Fresca are combining their expertise to provide new eCommerce platforms and strategies to over 100 high street stores, the subject of the increasing dominance of eCommerce and mCommerce over the high street is centre stage once again. After a recent survey conducted by Martec International, reports revealed eCommerce and mCommerce has grown from 17% to 23% in the last year, prompting stores to rethink their strategies to gain the most out of the rapidly changing consumer behaviour. With high street stores rapidly losing footfall through their doors, will there soon be an end to face to face customer service?

Retailers are increasingly turning to online purchase avenues, to enhance the customer’s shopping experience, add more products, ranges and brands and internationalise their brand as well as improve their multichannel amalgamation. With eCommerce paving the way, retailers will attempt to make the customer experience as easy as possible, by offering access from Smartphones and customer touch points, customers will be able to check stock and availability through 1 single stock pool. Equally, brands are able to diversify into broader markets and compete internationally at the click of a button on multiple channels. Retailers who are offering the customer a variety of channels to view and buy their products will have overall competitive edge against other major retail players.

Despite the obvious benefits to multichannel interaction with the customer, there is growing concern that with a loss of focus on traditional face to face shopping, that service levels are set to fall and consumers will undoubtedly turn back to the high street.  However, with the price transparency offered online, together with convenience and an inherent price reduction through eCommerce channels, consumers are unlikely to buck the trend and retailers must ensure they embrace multichannel integration and eCommerce diversification to ensure long term successes.

MPP Global offer secure, multichannel payment solutions which give our clients the ability to offer their customers the payment options they demand.