E-commerce is a 'vital' part of multichannel retailing

As the economic situation improves retailers are planning to invest more money into IT, it has been suggested.

The latest IT in Retail report of the top 100 companies, surveyed by Martec International and sponsored by BT Expedite, has found that spending on areas such as e-commerce is set to rise.

According to the results of the study, the gap between investing in store systems and e-commerce is reducing.

In fact, the leading non-food retailers in the list consider investment in the online arena to be their top priority, with store systems ranking second.

Richard Lowe, chief executive officer of BT Expedite, said: "The increased importance of multichannel retailing stands out as the area of growth, reinforcing the power of the web and store working together, as sales channels blur.

"This is the age of the 'smart shopper', who uses a variety of channels to shop and search for information about stock availability, pricing, promotions and product features."

Posted by Rachel Wheeler