A recent survey of its retail community by vendor management platform Validify revealed a picture of renewed vigour for digital transformation and a willingness to search out innovative new solutions to reach new goals because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought in changes in consumer shopping habits. What might have taken five years has happened in five months, it found.
A significant 57 per cent of respondents said they were ramping up digital transformation efforts as a result of the pandemic while only 11 per cent said they were applying the brakes.A retail survey by vendor management platform Validify revealed a picture of renewed vigour for digital transformation and a willingness to search out innovative new solutions to reach new goals because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought in changes in consumer shopping habits. What might have taken five years has happened in five months, it found.#
Equally, investment in digital transformation is holding firm or being ramped up with almost half (46 per cent) saying that their budget has been increased due to the pandemic while the same percentage said they were maintaining investment levels.
Another important takeaway from the survey that caught our eye is an increased desire to seek out new and innovative companies to supply the tools for the new post-COVID era.
According to company co-founder Djalal Lougouev, the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation by years, ultimately improving the customer experience which covers product discovery, selection, purchasing and delivery.
“Traditional batch and blast tactics have been deprioritised and replaced with creative content strategies, editorial advertising and focus on topics that portray the brand beyond their product offerings,” he added.
The pandemic has accelerated the business need to think 'digital first', something digital and ecommerce teams have been championing for years. Businesses are not just taking the easy option of engaging established providers but searching out the new generation of innovators out there, the survey found.
Forty two per cent of respondents said they were more likely to work with new innovations and start-ups following the pandemic with no one saying they would be less likely to turn to new innovators.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital shopping by about five years since March, according to IBM’s annual US Retail Index Study released in August that found the pandemic has spurred more people to purchase products online to a level that probably wouldn’t have been seen until 2025.
While consumers have gradually increased their digital shopping over the past few years, as the novel coronavirus rippled across the United States near the end of the first quarter, consumers shifted their purchases online, and e-commerce sales accelerated from plus 13 per cent growth in the first quarter to plus 26 per cent growth in the second, IBM had said.
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