Retailers: Don’t Cut Corners With IT Investments by Skimping on Testing

By Colin Armitage

The retail world is changing rapidly as companies move to make significant investments in digital technologies. Retailers are innovating in response to consumer demand for instant access to product information and transactions through digital channels.

Customer-facing mobile services are especially appealing to retailers as they seek to enhance the in-store experience by giving patrons some of the convenience of internet shopping. Recognizing their customers attachment to smartphones and tablets, retailers such as The Home Depot and Ben & Jerry's are offering smartphone checkout, electronic receipts and text message-based personalized promotions with targeted coupons and specials.

According to Boston Retail Partners’ 15th Annual POS/Customer Engagement Benchmarking Survey, retailers ranked in-store customer-facing technology as the most important factor to their organizations. In addition, 30 percent of respondents said they have a smartphone app, 40 percent have implemented a digital catalog, and 40 percent offer product information and a shopping list via customer-facing mobile technology. They also said their focus within the next two years will be on offering further customer-facing technologies.

What's more, eMarketer estimates that U.S. retail e-commerce sales will reach $304.1 billion in 2014, which is an increase of 15.5 percent over last year's $263.3 billion. According to eMarketer, that growth will represent more than 20 percent of 2014's total retail sales increase of $199.4 billion.

It's no wonder that worldwide retail sector IT spending will grow 3.4 percent in 2014 and that "[r]etailers increased focus on mobility, along with ongoing investments in e-commerce initiatives to develop a true cross-channel retail experience, will drive investment throughout the forecast period."

Leveraging mobility and new digital technologies is a smart move for the retail industry, especially as it seeks to engage younger consumers accustomed to using mobile devices to communicate, browse and play. But as with any new endeavor, retailers should proceed with caution and pay heed to the following:

1. Plan ahead. Adopt change-friendly platforms and apps that allow for quick, frequent changes to content and functionality. This way, retailers can keep up with advances in mobility and web-based technologies.

2. Adapt quickly. Change-friendly technology encourages experimentation with offerings and new customer experiences, adjusting or replacing functions and features based on what works. It also makes it possible to respond quickly to innovations by competitors.

3. Avoid disasters. Flaky e-commerce processes or displaying inaccurate information can be costly, with the former ushering consumers to the competition and the latter potentially causing major headaches. Last fall, Wal-Mart wrongly displayed on its website items worth more than $500 each for less than $10. Catching the error too late, Wal-Mart cancelled purchases, angering customers and taking PR and stock price hits as a result.

4. Test first. To prevent costly disasters, retailers should test and retest before launching any new systems, websites or apps. Quality assurance (QA) — particularly validation testing where anomalies are picked up as a result of changes made to supporting systems and applications — is essential to a successful launch.

5. Test quickly and often. Don't be reckless, but bring a sense of urgency to testing. Customer-facing applications must keep pace with the breakneck evolution in the customer experience — and they should never bog down the fine-tuning of that experience. In today's rapidly shifting digital/mobile landscape, a daily check of your e-commerce site should be mandatory.

Investing in new technologies to better target and engage consumers is a sound strategy for retailers, but rushing to launch a new service or cutting corners in QA processes is a potentially costly mistake. Technology disasters erode customer loyalty, brand value and reputation, and for public companies, they can scare off investors.

Colin Armitage is CEO of Original Software, a software testing solutions company.