Around this time every year, we tend to see a major influx in retail-related press coverage in preparation for the upcoming holiday shopping season. One thing that makes this year’s coverage different from years past is the major focus on omnichannel retailing; providing a seamless consumer experience across all available shopping channels.

Major British retailer, Tesco, has been making quite a splash in the omnichannel space with 2 major announcements.  Tesco has just released an update that it’s preparing a trial for a new in-store mobile app, “MyStore,” that combines shopping lists with in-store navigation. I can say from personal experience there are plenty of times I’d love some guidance while trying to find my way around a 100,000 square foot supermarket. http://goo.gl/gLM2rp

In order to further demonstrate how seriously they are taking their new omnichannel initiatives, Tesco also announced that they poached hired Karen Dracou, 5 year veteran and former head of omnichannel development at John Lewis.  In the announcement, Tesco CEO, Phillip Clarke wrote: “A lot of retailers claim it, but creating individually perfect shopping experiences, however a customer shops, is difficult to achieve. Becoming a multichannel leader is about more than just putting iPads in stores. It needs investment in new types of skills and now just in the IT department.”  http://goo.gl/tM31j3

In both his words and his actions, Clarke has demonstrated and understanding of what it really means to be a leader in the omnichannel space. Big screens and tablets are great, but they are not enough to deliver a truly customized shopping experience to every customer. That’s what our dream is at CloudTags, and from the looks of it, that’s Tesco’s dream too.