It’s been two years since the pandemic transformed the retail market, and it feels like we’re still adjusting, as nothing remains certain. But the retail industry isn’t letting it stop its efforts to create the best shopping experiences or tap into the most innovative technologies.

 Today, we bring you six exciting retail trends to watch, and include some practical advice to help you turn these trends into competitive advantages for your company.

Expand into China as its Youngest Generation Devours the Luxury Retail Market

We’re seeing a large number of companies heading for Chinese expansion, and with good reason. “China was the only country with positive luxury growth in 2020,” reports Fashion Discounts. “By 2025, China will be the world’s largest luxury market,” predicts The Luxury Conversation.

The time to expand is now, as its youngest generation – born in 1990-2000 – is “now 50% of the luxury market,” according to Jing Daily.

The timing is especially critical, as Chinese consumers tend to celebrate national pride and buy from local brands, especially following the pandemic, explains The Luxury Conversation. To engage them, we recommend localizing at a deep level – from the software you use to the influencers you partner with – to create a shopping experience that feels immersed in the local culture.

Prioritize Gen Z

One of the biggest retail trends to watch is the growing emphasis retailers put on Gen Z – rightfully so, since “70% of luxury sales will be made by Gen Z and millennials by 2025,” reports Luxe Digital. And their shopping preferences are different from what we’ve known so far.

Source: Luxe Digital

According to eMarketer, Gen Z consumers educate themselves on social media, which is the best place to target them, whether organically, via advertising or with the help of influencers. According to the Instagram 2022 Trend Report, over 1 in 4 intends to shop directly through their social media feeds.

When you do target them, eMarketer points out they care a lot more about a brand’s proactive action toward social justice than they do about product prices, even though they don’t make as much money as older generations. Instagram emphasizes that Gen Zers cares about sustainability, including reusing, repurposing and reselling their clothes.

Leverage Influencers in a Way that Actually Matters to Your Audience

Using influencers to engage with consumers has been one of the retail trends to watch for a while, but it’s growing in significance, especially as Gen Z gets prioritized. According to Ogilvy’s 2022 report, “influencer marketing is 277% more emotionally intense and 87% more memorable” than TV ads, as it gets integrated into content consumers already enjoy.

In addition, influencer marketing is a great opportunity for the retail markets to put their money where their brand promises to this generation are.

The report indicates that “38% of consumers are more likely to trust brands that cast diverse people in their ads,” but points out that this alone won’t solve the inequality found in the industry. It explains that “black female influencers are paid up to 10 times less for the same work as their white counterparts. In addition to the steep racial pay gap, female influencers are paid 33% less than male influencers – even though female influencers make up 84% of the entire industry. On top of that, LGBTQ+ influencers, as well as influencers with disabilities, are more often compensated with ‘exposure’ in lieu of the standard rates brands usually pay.”

Design Omnichannel Clienteling

After getting hit during the first COVID year, “the personal luxury goods market grew by 29%” in 2021, reaching 283 billion Euros, reports Bain & Company, which expects this retail market to keep experiencing a 6-8% annual growth by 2025.

Source: Luxe Digital

However, the pandemic managed to change this market nonetheless. Alongside other sectors, clienteling turned to virtual platforms to keep operating, and it is expected to keep combining in-store and virtual channels as we head into 2022.

Sales associates will need to be empowered by omnichannel data, so they can predict customers’ needs based on their history with the company, make personalized recommendations, and keep track of customers’ desired products when they get back to stock, no matter how they interact with customers.

Provide Same Day Delivery (Although Most Consumers Still Accept a Slightly Larger Delivery Window)

The last mile continues to be a critical aspect of the shopping experience. Expect an increase in the amount of retailers offering same day delivery, some as fast as two hours, predicts Forbes. One of the ways they’ll make it happen is by establishing micro fulfillment and distribution centers across the country, it explains. Another way is by partnering with third party delivery services, such as DoorDash.

But in case offering same day delivery feels like too big of a leap from where your company is right now, McKinsey research found that “more than 90% of US online shoppers expect free two to three day shipping.” Longer than that, half of them will shop elsewhere.

Bring RFID to Your Stores

According to the Global RFID Market Research 2021-2026, Logistik Unicorp was able to reduce shipping time by 35% using RFID technology, while ensuring “strict quality requirements.”

RFID stands for radio-frequency identification. When you have an RFID reader, it can read tags or smart labels, then capture the data on your system. This technology is growing in popularity in retail markets, because it automates and simplifies transaction and inventory management.

For example, one of the trends we’re seeing is letting RFID automatically scan items in shopping baskets and populate customers’ carts, so they and your cashiers won’t need to do it automatically. That’s a much better shopping experience, as it removes the need for tedious tasks, and keeps the focus on the fun. Then, when customers walk out of the store, it scans the items again, to verify they actually paid for them. If they didn’t, an alarm is set off.

Back in their warehouses, a key trend that came up in the report is that retailers use RFID technology to track and manage inventory more accurately, plus make smarter purchase decisions, which lead to higher profit margins.

In addition, we’ve seen retailers use a wand to scan boxes. It records which orders have been processed and which items are leaving the warehouse. After all, if you’re looking for retail trends to watch, you might as well explore trends that make your team’s life easier while giving customers a better experience. It’s kinda like having your own magic wand.

2022 Retail Trends to Watch… and Implement

Now that you’ve got a list of the most exciting retail trends to watch, it’s time to start implementing them and lead your retail markets. But the good news is you don’t have to implement all of them, certainly not right away.

It’s much better to choose one or two that holistically align with your goals for 2022, and master them before expanding further. It will help you focus on creating the kind of shopping experiences that drive customer joy. Test these trends out, get feedback from your customers, check your profit margins, then adjust as you go. Over time, you’ll drive loyalty and advocacy, too, leading to a compound interest in your bottom line.

Ai-based video analytics are opening the door to exciting advancements in business intelligence…and they can now integrate into almost any location.

As retail continues to adapt to the new normal of life with COVID, there is still much consideration regarding how to better manage both retail operations and customer expectations. Retailers need to be agile, adaptive, and dynamic, both now and in the future. This is particularly true regarding the store, as labor shortages, distribution challenges, changing customer expectations and frenetic pricing continue to impact the bottom line. Thankfully, there are new technology developments that can help.

Insite is a new, turnkey, Ai-enabled “smart” video solution that delivers real-time insights to retail store operators, marketing, merchandising and design teams. With it, they are able to understand and manage what’s happening (and, in some cases, not happening) on the store floor to ensure bettercustomer experiences and more revenue­–without requiring additional headcount. It works by integrating video surveillance, data analytics, POS and artificial intelligence (Ai) together with both new and traditional CCTV systems. This allows teams to dramatically improve service times and gain insight into their unique business and customer challenges so that they can do something about it.

Here are some real-world, applied examples.

• Better understand wait times and throughput to design a plan that schedules the perfect number of employees based on customer counts and traffic patterns
• Take advantage of peak hours by understanding how customers shop the store
• Turn shopper behavior into “KPI dashboards” that report on traffic, dwell, engagement and, if using Insite’s POS API, conversion, for either the entire store or zones of interest
• View the daily or weekly trends and traffic patterns of each store zone, display or service point
• Enhance the effectiveness of displays and increase impulse purchases by knowing stock levels, what customers are engaging with and when they appear to be waiting for help
• Using Ai in conjunction with POS data, manage shrink or theft based on exception-based reporting, such as a “refund to cash with no customer standing in front of POS”
• Tags suspect transactions and presents them every morning with video, receipt, and risk types for management’s quick, proactive review–which can be done by region, store, and specific associate to quickly identify potential personnel or location risks
• Maximize the use of high-traffic areas to test new merchandise, move products quickly or drive more high-margin impulse buys
• Detect repeat customers to so that staff or apps can better interact with them
• Detect potential security threats before they happen
• Increase profitability and revenue by generating real-time reports and alerts that for any of these features

When it comes down to it, what Insite and its smart video capabilities does is enable managers and staff to know what’s happening and take action with the information it makes available. Because it does it with technology, stores save time and money and can protect the business and bottom line. Working in sync with a secure cloud, operators and businesses keep their environment safe, operationally streamlined and optimized for customer experience with real-time actionable data. This capability has historically only been available at a premium per-location cost. The Insite platform offers the same capabilities and data options at a price point all retailers–both large and small–can afford.

If you’d like more information, please contact our partner All Point Retail at [email protected].

As 2020-2021 was hit by COVID-19, shopping behaviors weren’t left unchanged. All markets and sectors that were behind in the development of online shopping platforms were forced to accelerate their digital transformation. Consumers of 2021 are demanding that retail companies bring new customer experiences to maintain an accelerated pace of digital evolution.

Having an eCommerce business is no longer a luxury, it is an essential requirement that a retailer must have to bring in sales in the post-pandemic years. In this pandemic year alone, global eCommerce retail sales grew by more than 25%, emphasizing the importance of having a retail eCommerce business. In this blog, we are going to analyze some of the top eCommerce trends that will define the retail industry in 2022.

Consumer behaviors have changed drastically. Lower in-store traffic coupled with an increasing preference for powerful digital experience, customers are pivoting their demands of brands.

According to a study carried out by Statista on eCommerce platforms, this is the future of retail:

Due to the notorious changes in the consumer shopping behaviors, top ecommerce trends have emerged and will be the ones to set the new digital standards in the upcoming year.

1. Retail Is Now Omnichannel.

2. Augmented reality to improve the shopping experience.

Using augmented reality in your eCommerce store can give your business the edge over your competition. Gartner points out that in 2020, 100 million consumers used AR technology to buy online and suggests that 35% of buyers would buy more online if eCommerce had that virtual solution to test a product. Also, 71% of consumers would buy more in that store if they were allowed to experience the products through this technology.

With this technology, shoppers can better visualize the product they want to buy, providing them with more of an in-store experience. The retail industry is an example of the sectors that benefit from this technology. Zara has started to implement it through reality mannequins and a new eCommerce platform that shows life-size models wearing the brand’s latest clothes. This enables retailers to generate online sales since it is possible to buy the clothes through the app.

3. User experience will be extended to voice assistants.

4. From eCommerce business to marketplace.

5. Social commerce — Shopping on social media

The fashion industry and the textile sector have made great progress in recent years, betting on sustainable fashion and a more circular economy. Much is said about that, but do you actually know what ethical fashion is?

Sustainable fashion and ethical clothing consists of making clothes and accessories from materials that come from nature and even waste materials – as long as they can be recycled – such as plastic bottles or paper. These sustainable materials are used to manufacture new fabrics that allow making garments.

In addition, sustainable fashion is beneficial for our health. Ecological garments, or “eco-garments”, are made with natural materials such as organic cotton, bamboo, algae, tencel (cellulosic fiber), nettles, fish skin (used for shoes and bags) and natural dyes that give color to the sustainable fabrics. All these materials are free of toxic and dangerous chemicals, which prevents allergies and skin irritations, in addition to the low environmental impact.

The fashion industry has an important role to play in approaching global sustainability challenges, both because of its impact and its influence, but it is notoriously under-regulated on ethical practices and is the second most polluting industry.

Luckily that is starting to change. In Europe and the US, governments are considering new policies and regulations that could add sustainable practices, improve the wages and working conditions of garment workers and transform the fast fashion industry. Pressure to change is coming from investors, consumers and even brands themselves. Companies are responding with social and environmental commitments to do better.

But are they actually making a difference?

One way for fashion to reduce its environmental impact is by scaling circular business models, through which companies employ a range of strategies to reduce deadstock fabrics and recycled materials to make more efficient use of resources. Measures such as the EU’s carbon border tax will promote circular fashion by making the economics of onshore recycling and other sustainable practices more attractive.

How to Impulse the Future of Circularity?

A more circular fashion industry requires collective efforts in which fashion companies, customers and all participants in the value chain collaborate. The priority must be to set circular strategies, low environmental impacts and tackle scalability challenges.

One company that has embraced ethical fashion design is Dai Wear, a London-based company which employs recycled materials and sustainable fabrics to produce performance wear. The company uses biodegradable yarns for seams and air-dried fabrics to reduce washing needs.

Another American brand that is committed to sustainability is Christy Dawn, a fashion brand that creates vintage pieces with a big 70s influence. All clothes are manufactured in a very limited quantity, the brand uploads about 2-3 new pieces a week and are ethically made by artisans in Los Angeles. The creator Christy Dawn is highly committed to low environmental impact, so in addition to using deadstock fabrics, she makes sure to have fair trade conditions through long-term commitments with the manufacturers, suppliers and artisans who create the clothes.

How can you engage consumers to overcome stigmas and embrace sustainable practices?

As consumers become more engaged with sustainable fashion and ethical practices, circularity will be the key that unlocks the door to more sustainable fashion brands. While circularity is winning fans among some consumer groups, recycled materials still have some negative connotations. Nevertheless, consumers are willing to return recent purchases with the incentive of a refund.

Although social and environmental commitment of sustainable fashion is quite clear, by taking advantage of deadstock fabrics, plastic bottles,organic cottons and other natural resources, as well as fair trade conditions, these are the positive impacts of sustainable fashion brands:

Resources:

Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Clean Clothes Campaign

Ethical Time

Business Of Fashion

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, is changing the way companies operate, their internal processes and, therefore, the technological environments in which they must be involved. But before we start analyzing the impact that this tech and digital revolution will have on organizations, people and assets, let’s do a beginners guide to talk about what Industry 4.0 is, what we mean by impacting businesses positively and the benefits of adopting it.

What is Industry 4.0?

Industry 4.0 is an evolution of industry that focuses heavily on interconnectivity, automation, machine learning, and real-time data. It integrates production and physical operations with smart digital technology and big data analytics to create a more holistic and better connected ecosystem. While every organization operating has different business models, physical systems and production processes, they all face the same challenge: the need for connectivity and access to real-time information.

Industry 4.0 is not just about investing in new technology and tools to make process improvements, change the manufacturing execution or boost productivity and efficiency, it’s about revolutionizing the way your entire business operates and grows in all the value chain.

These are exciting new technologies, but leaders of organizations must identify the ones that best meet their needs and support their manufacturing processes to increase efficiency in their companies.

Now that we have a scope of what the Fourth Industrial Revolution is, let’s analyze the impact of implementing this tech revolution in companies and their business process to stay updated. The impact that it has is much broader, affecting all industries, from the United Kingdom to the Middle East and its societies. Technologies related can also lead to entirely new products and services. The use of sensors and wearable devices, AI and machine learning to analyze large amounts of data, autonomous mobile robots, among others, will allow improvements in products from the creation of prototypes to the incorporation of connectivity, to other devices. These changes are reflected in the supply chain and, consequently, in customers.

What are the impacts of Industry 4.0?

The impacts of the Fourth Industrial Revolution can be felt at multiple levels: in ecosystems, at the organizational as well as individual (client) level:

– Ecosystems. In addition to the change in which horizontal and vertical systems operate, Industry 4.0 affects all the people who are part of the supply chain: suppliers, customers, board of directors, partner programs, among others. 

– Organizations. The ability to adjust and learn from data in real time can make organizations more responsive, efficient and productive. It also enables the organization to reduce its productivity risks, have preventive maintenance and smart manufacture in products.

– Individuals: Industry 4.0 can mean different things to everyone. For example, for employees it may mean changes in their inventory management, optimized processes and smart machines that are actual autonomous robots. While for customers it could mean digitally transformed processes and greater customization in products and services that better meet their needs.

What are the challenges of Industry 4.0?

Finding the right Industry 4.0 fit. The true challenge is that it isn’t always clear for companies which innovation initiative to adopt. Fourth Industrial Revolution offers a variety of options which carry high complexity risks due to the little experience we have in the implementation processes. That is why it is decisive for companies to make an exhaustive analysis and have a ROI calculator to make this great investment a success.

And for those companies that have already selected Industry 4.0, there are still barriers to  overcome. A real world example would be: How will companies build paths to select, justify and leverage the functionalities available to them? 

From a technology perspective, increased connectivity and cloud computing mean that issues like cyber physical systems and data ownership must be addressed. Companies must choose projects that are consistent with their business process, identify what the benefits of these technologies are and create the infrastructure to be able to incorporate them successfully.

It’s been awhile since ecommerce platforms started to grow and have become increasingly popular in the retail industry, opening the doors to global online shopping and retail ecommerce sales. Many companies have left behind the traditional physical store to expand on the ecommerce market. Today, partly due to the COVID19 pandemic, online retail sales have become the preferred purchasing method for consumers. As brick and mortar stores temporarily closed their doors, buyers relied on ecommerce retailers to purchase everything, not only through websites, but also through social media, online marketplaces and apps. Retail ecommerce is an informative source with a lot of impact, and allows companies to get closer to their target audience.

This business model has been key for small companies in the supply chain to grow and access other markets, from Asia Pacific to  North America, Latin America or the United Kingdom, something very difficult to achieve with traditional retailers and physical stores. Not needing large infrastructures and being able to do this without limitations such as time, space or logistics, cross border ecommerce has been one of the main causes that have led to its expansion. But how can we take advantage of this technology and implement it in our ecommerce business and shopping experience?

Well, let’s get back to basics and remember that in the retail industry it’s all about the consumer. Delivering a unique and personalized customer experience (CX) is of vital importance for both B2B ecommerce and B2C ecommerce organizations. Those that adopt an ecommerce model with the best-in-class CX will boost loyalty and ensure long-term revenue growth.

Currently, the ecommerce market is booming, and the Covid19 pandemic has given it the final push. Here is some data that confirms the ecommerce growth over the past year:

• U.S. consumers spent $78 billion online in March, up 49% year-over- year, according to the latest Adobe Digital Economy Index.
• Nine out of the world’s 10 largest ecommerce companies experienced double-digit revenue growth during the pandemic year of 2020, according to a recent GlobalData analysis emailed to Retail Dive.
•  83.7% of consumers said that the pandemic has prompted them to use more Internet to buy compared to traditional commerce, according to the 2021 Annual Ecommerce Study of IEB School.

In a recent Harvard Business Review Analytic Services survey, of nearly 1,100 executives, 42% expect the ecommerce leaders in their organizations to play a role when it comes to customer insight and sentiment analysis in the upcoming years.

Online sales are now part of the digital transformation of our everyday life, but still not optimized in many organizations. For an ecommerce system to be maintained over time, it is necessary to study the market situation, the viability of the project and have a team of people trained to carry out the processes. 

These are some focal points to keep in mind in order to carry out a successful ecommerce business:

• Create a business plan and investment feasibility for the ecommerce platform.
• Loyalty and digital marketing strategies.
• Choosing the right platform for creating an online store.
• Logistics and payment methods.
• Internationalization of the company to create a global ecommerce platform.
• Keep track of metrics to monitor social media.
• Study ecommerce trends such as Bockchain, Big Data and Machine Learning.

According to Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, leading retailers can study customers behavior online, via an app or other digital marketing channels, and determine with these technology advances if the CX is working or how it could be improved. Many companies have successfully broken down data using customer relationship management (CRM) systems for online shopping, internal communication tools, application programming interfaces, or cloud computing. For global retail ecommerce to be successful, retailers need the ability to see buyers’ interactions all in one place, whether they are in brick and mortar stores or online shopping.