How to make real the forecasts (growth) for 2017 Retail sales

NRF (National Retail Federation) released the economic forecasts for 2017, and revealed that Retail industry will increase sales between 3.7% and 4.2% vs. 2016, and will increase for 5-12% concerning online activities.
Furthermore, as focused during the "Observatory on innovation in Retail" presentation, which took place at the Politecnico in Milan last November, for the next three years the investments in digital transformation for Retail will triple.

But how can we translate these numbers into trends and hot topics? These are 5 good practices to exploit Retail good trends:

QUALITY, TRANSPARENCY AND SUSTAINABILITY

Nowadays, the consumer is more aware and consequently more demanding. The quantity of information available on line is huge and able to reply to any question. Used to this kind of search and due to the recent trend towards a responsible and sustainable approach ? undertaken by many companies ? the consumer has high expectations, and only those who will be able to satisfy them in the best way will be able to see real results. 
In other words, the high quality of the product is not a driving factor anymore, if it's not combined with ethical and detailed information, able to tell about the company and its way to manufacture.

CUSTOM has always taken care to the concept of sustainability and has recently launched the new Energy-efficient function, able to tear down printing consumption, to be applied to mPLUS2 and PLUS2 small panel printers. Energy-efficient allows to print with a maximum power lower than 1.8 Amperes and with a medium power lower than 0.8 Ampere, without compromising the quality of the printing.

BEING ABLE TO OFFER A UNIQUE IN-STORE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE

In addition to try to impress with special effects as spectacular locations or entertainment and relax services integrated inside the point of sale, which are too ambitious investments for many companies, the real point is: differentiating finding the way to overcome the pleasant continuity generated by the online shopping. 
How? The trend is to adopt omni-channel strategies, to move the fluid online experience also into the store.

Bizeta Retail Solutions, a company belonging to Custom Group, is focused on IT solutions for Retail. With more than 30 years of experience in the field of Retail, Bizeta offers omni-channel solutions, applied in more than 50 Countries all over the world and compatible both with small domestic companies and international companies with a global brand.

CUSTOMIZE, CUSTOMIZE, CUSTOMIZE!

According to a study made by Accenture Interactive, "56% of consumers make shopping at a reseller's or on a website that is able to recognize the shopper's name". 
The biggest companies can have a budget to push the offer of exclusive customized products, but how could small businesses propose this kind of solution? There are many strategies at many prices, the common point is the targeting of customers. Presenting customized offers with tailored contents, exploiting the technologies on the market, as Mobile Apps, Push and Beacons Notifications, will allow to know and directly communicate with the customers, getting close to them and also making them loyal to our business.

CUSTOM made the concept of customization its trademark: the company was born with the aim of providing customized solutions to its own customers and it's going on with this kind of designing and developing. The needs of markets and customers come for first, creating real solutions for real needs.

RETAIL & TECHNOLOGY: EVEN MORE INSEPARABLE

In order to offer consumers high quality experience, the most useful effort for retailers will be adding more and more technologies into their own activities. 
In 2017, technology applied to retail will be fundamental to seduce customers directly in-store through smooth, captivating and customized shopping experience. 
The keys? Omnichannel strategies, mobile payments and apps!

Netrising is the company, belonging to Custom Group, specialized in the field of digital, and it's the Italian leader in terms of downloaded and active apps on the stores. Netrising designs and develops cutting-edge web and mobile technologies, to satisfy several sectors, including Retail.

RETAILTAINMENT

The last trend for the "in-store experience"? The Retailtainment.
The Retailtainment, as the name suggests, is a combo between Retail and Entertainment ? an effort made by resellers to provide their customers unique and funny experience, able to elevate the shopping to a level that has increased. 
The Retailtainment assumes that people are more likely to commit to the resellers who are able to add lifestyle elements inside their point of sales, in example cafés boutique or virtual reality experiences.

2017 will definitely support the retailers who will be able to integrate all these good practices into their workflow: customize and amaze, these are the goals to achieve.

CUSTOM Group has being designing for more than 25 years integrated and versatile solutions, able to make real the concept of high quality Customer Experience. The mix of hardware, software and service applications make our offer complete and ideal for the good forecast of Retail sales. 
Among the most recent innovations of CUSTOM POS/RETAIL division (PcPos, Printers & Cash registers, we can find K3, the point of sale thermal printer with integrated wireless barcode scanner, able to communicate wireless and contactless. This system, designed for the spaces dedicated to retail, integrates thermal printing, RFID technology, two-dimensional barcode scanning (both WiFi and Bluetooth) and contactless recharge: all functions able to work with or without PC. 
Elegant, compact and able to work with loyalty programs, K3 with integrated MultiScan represents one of the most advanced POS solutions on the market.

CUSTOM will be in Düsseldorf on March 5-9 2017 for EuroShop, the biggest and most important Retail event on an International level. We look forward to meeting you at our booth 6F47 to show you our latest technological innovations.