By Julian Chu, Demandware Client Success

Cisco recently issued the 3rd installment in its annual survey of online retailers' ecommerce capabilities. The survey scope was expanded this year to include both North American and European retailers.

In this post we'll discuss some of the key findings of this study:

"Mobile Emerges as a Growth Channel for Retail"
This was in fact the title of the report. Cisco asserts that retailers need to proactively address the growing usage of mobile devices for shopping, especially by younger consumers. The study found that 42% of surveyed retailers provide product content through mobile-specific sites/pages, 15% enable customers to buy products via mobile devices, and another 10% are using SMS to answer shopper questions.

It should be noted that the survey scope was comprised of 45 major retailers, mostly large store chains. So the numbers above certainly do not apply to the market as a whole. But the idea of giving in-store shoppers the ability to get instant customer service via SMS is a great one; this approach could cost-effectively address the growing problem of not being able to find anyone to help you in these "big-box" retailers! For most of the rest of the market, the need for mobile-specific investment is probably at least 1-2 years off - let the well-funded giants figure out what works and doesn't work and leverage their experience accordingly.

"Social Networking and Interactive Technologies Becoming Must-haves"
The study notes that social networking has become mainstream. I would certainly agree - a recent survey of my 15th college reunion class showed that 55% of us are using sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn - and we're not exactly young anymore! Key stats among surveyed retailers:

• 52% are providing for customer product reviews.
  
• 17% of surveyed retailers have customer community features.
  
• 50% have advanced visualization tools and videos on their sites.

There's nothing customers value more than peer feedback. Customer-generated product ratings and reviews are becoming almost tablestakes, and it's a rare retailer that wouldn't benefit by adding this to their sites. Community features are moving from being more-or-less distinct areas of the site to becoming tightly integrated with the main shopping experience -Wet Seal's new Fashion Community is a good example of what's possible today. As people have gotten more experienced building interactive features on AJAX and Flash/Flex, there's been an explosion of innovation in this area. In short, while we're still in the early stages of the "Web 2.0" era, things are moving very fast, and you'd best keep a close eye on the competition.

Retailers must keep innovating to stay competitive
The survey notes that all of the retailers classified as "leaders" have introduced "at least five new and highly relevant capabilities in the last 12 months." As discussed in a separate article on the study, "The best strategy is to carry out a continual roll out of upgrades," says Lindsay Parker, director of Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) retail at Cisco. "Don't wait for a major event to innovate," Parker says. "You must first create a roadmap and then build underlying technology that enables you to add new functions. Then you need to continually roll these out to be innovative and fun, which will fully engage your customers."

In case you were wondering, the top 10 ranked retailers from the study were Amazon.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, Quelle, Otto, Macy's, FNAC and Bol.com.

The key word here is "relevant" - simply introducing lots of whiz-bang technologies may not get you anywhere unless it truly enhances the customer shopping experience. And the missing word is "profitable" - innovations are worthless if they don't drive customer loyalty, incremental sales and ultimately ROI. Furthermore, don't lose sight of core merchandising basics - the most innovative web site in the world won't do you any good if the core business is suffering (viz Circuit City).

That said, the general point is spot on. Online retailers need to have an ecommerce platform that enables them to easily and quickly roll out new, differentiating capabilities on their sites. They need robust business user tools that allow them to rapidly make changes to site content, without involving or waiting for the IT department. And they need an ecommerce partner that helps them stay on the innovation curve by continuously delivering new functionality without the need for expensive, time-consuming software upgrades. If you don't currently have these capabilities, maybe it's time to start looking for a new platform!