Pier 1 CIO Wants Retailers to Change with the Times of Technology

Andy Laudato, SVP and CIO at Pier 1, believes that “retail hasn’t changed in thousands of years until 1994 with Amazon.com,” he told Computer Weekly.

With sites like Pinterest, Laudato says that customers are now arranging products on ‘boards’ versus in-stores.

“There are limitless ways our intelligent, educated consumers who love decorating can use our products in different ways,” he said. “But if they’re not happy they could create a board saying ‘I hate Pier 1’ too.”

Now he is trying to warn retailers that if they don’t adapt or change with the times of technology disruption, then they will not survive.
Demandware president and CEO, Tom Ebling also believes that retailers are under threat from the “Amazon Effect.”

“Amazon poses a healthy dose of competition. They are leaders in retail, dominating with Kindle in the cloud, offering web services, and also delivery logistics with Amazon Prime,” Ebling said. “They used to only sell books – now it has 31 million global customers shopping just for clothing.”
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