EKN: Industry Point of View: Leading the One-Retail Merchandising Evolution Through Context Driven Promotions and Pricing

With consumers increasingly ena¬bled by personal technology and driven by value consciousness, their shopping habits and preferences have changed dramatically. In response, a Utopian vision of a consistent, seamlessly integrated and customer-centric retailer has emerged. The merchandising function is symptomatic of the larger transformational challenge facing retailers. In order to truly achieve the vision of a single, unified retail experience delivered to customers across all channels, the art and science of merchandising requires a new focus and new capabilities. Retailers will need to evolve the merchandising function to be integrated - across the merchandising process chain, the enterprise and channels. In this Point of View, we illustrate why and how the merchandising function needs to transform from a traditional, product-centric retailing environment to one that is integrated and focused on the customer, as well as how context driven promotions and pricing can lead the one retail merchandising evolution.