Consulting firm Kurt Salmon recently published their 2015 analysis of the retail omnichannel market in Europe. Being British and focused on omnichannel developments in the UK the most striking results that leap out from the research is that British retailers are far ahead of their European counterparts.

The research focused on four different areas; mobile, online, social, and cross channel. It stated that every company surveyed could improve their cross channel offering, but in the other areas there are clear winners.

The leading companies were Topshop, Wallis, and Miss Selfridge, followed by department stores John Lewis and House of Fraser.  A particularly good result was for the Arcadia group, with Topshop the top brand overall across all metrics.

An interesting observation from the survey was that one area where British stores appear far behind continental Europe is in offering stock checking options on the website. Having the ability to go online and check that an item of stock can be found in a store is a strong driver for customers to visit a store. If they need an item quickly it helps immensely to check stock levels or even having the ability to check stock and then reserve the items.

This is a great example of how the online store can be married to the physical store in a way that makes both online and offline work together. Retailers looking to drive cross channel engagement need to consider exactly how to enable customers to use the right channel at the right time, without an enormous cost of switching.

Given that the weakest area for all companies in this research was support for customers across multiple channels there is still plenty of work to be done. Perhaps by next year, some of these companies can have a much stronger omnichannel offer for their customers.

What do you think about the state of omnichannel adoption in retailers across Europe? Leave a comment here or get in touch via my LinkedIn profile.

 

Image via melenita2012