Local ​retailers​ are not keeping up with ​consumer expectations​, costing the Australian economy billions in abandoned sales.

The local owner of children's toy and product brands, Toys"R"Us and Babies"R"Us, which recently re-launched in Australia and debuted in New Zealand, has announced eBay as a retail partner under a newly inked deal.

Amid talk of a retail recession in Australia, there is a real opportunity for savvy brands to meet and exceed customer expectations to create a retail renaissance.

eBay Australia has embraced an omnichannel approach to reaching its buyers by launching its first Australian paper catalogue. There will also be a digital shoppable version of the catalogue online from next week.

Digitisation in retail today is less about table stakes capabilities such as ecommerce and omnichannel efficiency and more about how brands innovate their customer experience, particularly in-store, SAP’s retail chief claims.

Omnichannel retailing isn’t about technology, it’s about how to create the environment, culture and organisational DNA that drives the right customer outcomes whatever way they engage with your brand.

Using the personality and online reach of in-store staff online could be a vital differentiator for retail brands looking to compete against digital upstarts and better meet consumer demand for experience-led shopping, Magento global CEO, Mark Lavelle, believes.

Fashion retailer, City Beach, was having a dream trading run until the late 1990s. After surviving the first hurdle into digital and embracing email as a marketing tool, City Beach hit a problem with its legacy automated marketing platform.

You may never have heard of New Era Cap Co, but you have probably seen its products, given they have been worn by celebrities and sporting luminaries from Jennifer Lopez to Babe Ruth.

​Physical stores are not dead. It is not only about either physical or digital stores, but how you seamlessly combine the two and deliver on customer experience, said Mark Teperson, chief digital officer at Accent Group at today’s Adobe Symposium in Sydney.

​What do you do when you are faced with a traditional retailer, who has been around for 118 years, that is in decline and unable to quickly effect change? You disrupt it from the inside, said Robbie Tutt, GM of Omni Channel at Myer, who spoke at the Online Retailer conference in Sydney last week about how he has set about turning around the beleaguered retailer’s fortunes.

The impending arrival of Amazon on Australian shores has left many brands and retailers scrambling to implement a response. And it’s the way in which Amazon will serve the market that arguably offers the biggest industry shake-up and reshape how consumers access products and services for brands and retailers alike.

It is up to traditional department stores like Myer to keep proving their relevance to consumers as omni-channel players as global giants like Amazon come to shake up Australia’s retail market, Myer’s CEO claims.

Increasing numbers of shoppers are choosing to make purchases online and are happy to share their location and mobile phone details with retailers in exchange for value.