Happy New Year! The retail and consumer industries face a significant transformational opportunity in 2016. Here are my top five predictions for the industries this year.

E-commerce sales continue at a blistering pace. As per the U.S. Department of Commerce, third quarter 2015 e-commerce sales increased 15.1% from the third quarter of 2014; while total retail sales increased 1.6% in the same period.1

E-commerce is set for significant growth this year. According to the Adobe Digital Index 2015 Holiday Shopping Predictions,1 2015 U.S. Holiday Season sales i.e., sales during November and December, will grow to an all-time high of $83 billion – an 11% year-over-year increase.

Meanwhile U.S. online sales on November 30 – Cyber Monday – are forecasted to see a 12% year-over-year increase, climbing to a record $3 billion in one day. Certainly nothing when compared to 11/11, or Singles’ Day2

Delivering on the promise of personalization calls for a 360-degree view of your consumers, products and in-store data.

Personalization seems to have replaced omnichannel as retailing’s hottest buzzword! At the Conext Connected Commerce Show, held last month in Lille, France, it seemed like every Retail exhibitor felt that personalization needed to be part of its message. There were multiple exhibits of personalized fit via 3D body images, personalized product design and printing,

“For retailers who lack the capability of using information about their card-holding customers and turning this data into tailor-made, individual, shopper-specific propositions – loyalty systems are no more than an expensive gadget.” 1

In my last post, Reinventing Loyalty Programs to Win, we discussed the fact that most loyalty programs in retail fail because they lack vision or provide “blind rewards.” While these un-targeted coupon and reward dispensing efforts provide only

“U.S. internet users belong to more than 13 loyalty programs, on average, according to brand loyalty data analyzed by eMarketer. But only 50% of users are active members.” 1

In Retail, few issues differentiate the winners from the losers more clearly than successful loyalty and rewards programs. Perennial winners at Retail loyalty programs, such as Kroger and Nordstrom’s, build their entire business model around leveraging loyalty data to meet and exceed the needs of loyal (and