Speculating on the Future of Retail Apps

Over the past couple of weeks Sutherland Labs in London have been delighted to host retail industry leaders at two events, to give an exclusive preview of the first global benchmark study of Retail Apps by the UXAlliance.

During each session, retailers were invited to revisit the evolution of the smartphone app as Kate Ancketill of GDR Creative Intelligence discussed how apps moved from novelty to omnipresent and even indispensable in a relatively short space of time. She also shared with our audience mobile app trends from around the world and the potential for completely new retail models in the future.

Simon Herd from Sutherland Labs revealed the results of the Global Retail Benchmark itself, the global trends that are shaping app experience, and provided practical guidance into how retailers might improve their app experiences.

One key insight resulting from the benchmark is that UX has become largely accepted across all of the industry leading apps, meaning that there is a competence baseline, although some are better than others at making the experience personally compelling to online shoppers. On the other hand, CX across these apps is hugely variable, with key pain points around the integration of online and offline experience. We predict that CX will be the battlefield on which users are won and lost in the coming years.

Missed the event? Keen to find out who leads the Retail App Benchmark? We will be publishing further highlights from the report in coming weeks, so stay tuned or contact simon@sutherlandlabs.com to discuss in more detail.