etailology

An nice general summary of emerging etail trends at Internet Retailer. Since apparel has been taking a bath lately, perhaps more savvy retailers will look online for salvation? If they do, they should choose wisely. Excerpt:

“For… almost all of today’s retailers, that means keeping abreast of—and in some cases taking initial steps to participate in — e-retailing trends that are likely to grow in importance over the next several years:

• Tighter and more customer-serving integration of information across web, store and call centers;
• More online video and a move toward web TV;
• Emergence of the cell phone and other wireless devices as both online shopping and payment devices;
• Social retailing as well as social networking;
• New web site applications such as a site search feature sthat, similar to Like.com for Internet search, enables shoppers to search for products based on particular characteristics like color or fabric.”

(Their conference is quite good, by the way.)