There has never been a better time to be a consumer. Developments in the cyber-shopping industry have afforded consumers more choices, flexibility and better service than ever before. As a result, retailers are being forced to expand their e-commerce offerings in order to keep up with the demands of the new cyber-savvy customer.

As retailers work to make the overall customer experience across every channel more seamless, customers are increasingly turning to online and mobile shopping to complete their transactions. According to an eMarketer report, worldwide retail e-commerce sales will reach $1.9 trillion this year. The report also expects retail e-commerce sales to increase to more than $4 trillion in 2020. Additionally, according to Criteo, the mobile share of global e-commerce is expected to grow from 40 percent to 70 percent by 2017, highlighting the importance of creating a mobile checkout.

Unfortunately, this rise in online sales has made retailers around the world increasingly vulnerable to dangerous cyberattacks. And, as mentioned in our previous blog post, retail companies “are particularly exposed because overseeing cybersecurity threats has become more difficult as legacy software systems grow older and lose the agility to support the needs of modern businesses.”

With rapidly changing consumer trends altering the ultra-competitive retail landscape, the retailers with the best technology tools will set themselves apart from their competition. As a result, in order to make sure their online and mobile sales don’t slow, retail giant Target has decided to boost its technology spend this year.

In fact, according to a Fortune Magazine article, Target “plans to spend close to $1.8 billion this year on capital projects, with the bulk going to e-commerce and supply chain improvements,” and that “last year was the first in Target’s history it spent more on tech than on purely brick-and-mortar expenses like new stores and remodels.”

The Fortune article also notes that Target’s legacy systems were constructed when merchandise moved from distribution center to stores, but says that in today’s age, technology needs to be able to “support coordinating product that moves between stores as well as with fulfillment centers, customers looking up inventory on a smartphone and the growing use of stores as a way to fill online orders.” Target’s increased investment in tech shows how serious the company is about modernizing its legacy systems and improving the entire shopper experience.

In fact, Target is already reaping the rewards. Last year during the holiday shopping season, the number of online orders that shoppers picked up in Target stores grew 60 percent during the holidays, allowing the retailer to offer improved convenience for customers. Though Target-specific statistics are not yet available, it is likely that the company’s increased investment in technology provided the retailer with additional benefits this year, as Cyber Monday 2016 was the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history.

In order to meet customer expectations during this year’s holiday shopping season, it is crucial that retail companies allocate as much attention to modernizing their legacy systems as they do to new web, mobile and social functionality in today’s digital landscape.

At Morphis, we work with our clients to manage, migrate and modernize legacy technology systems in order to not only protect retailers and their customers, but supply retail companies with the most complete solution for transforming legacy software to the cloud. In order to fully embrace today’s digital landscape, companies must reject their legacy systems and embrace cutting-edge technologies in order to completely accept this paradigm shift in the shopping industry and set themselves apart from their competition.