Lessons Retailers Can Take From the 2014 Holiday Shopping Season

Online-only retailers have some advantages (e.g., troves of customer data), and 2015 is the year to capitalize. Use it or lose it, as they say. In 2011, sales by web-only retailers passed web sales by retail chains for the first time. Web-only retailers continue to grow much faster than their brick-and-mortar counterparts, steadily widening the gap each year. Many retail giants like Target are just now going through a digital transformation by adding e-commerce experts to the C-suite, pouring money into mobile shopping sites and apps, and updating inventory systems to handle the omnichannel challenge.