Omnichannel Development within the Swedish Fashion Retail Industry

Sammanfattning: Omnichannel is the latest shift in retail which is driven by new technological advancements and changes in customer behaviors. In order to stay competitive retailers are required to integrate their sales and communication channels and deliver a seamless shopping experience to the customers. To create the omnichannel experience both organizational change and consolidation of several ICT components are required, which put a lot of pressure on the retailing organizations. This study examines the current omnichannel development of the Swedish fashion retail industry and explores the different attitudes and challenges towards this transformation. The market development was assessed through a field study where 54 omnichannel parameters was observed at 25 selected multi-channel retailers. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the development and the attitudes towards omnichannel retiling, a survey followed by semi-structured interviews was conducted with a selected number of retailers. The results showed that the Swedish market is still in the early stages of the omnichannel development and that most focus in the development has been on the front-end capabilities. The lack of digital maturity within the organization was seen as the largest challenge towards further development. It was also found that inherent characteristics of the fashion industry have made the retailers more reluctant when it comes to the use of data and analytics which is a key aspect of the omnichannel development. Finally more data driven business decisions and analytics about customer behaviors and buying patterns was seen as the largest improvement points for the retailers as the development progress.