The Future of Retail
5 trends reshaping the future of retail in 2019 and beyond!
The Future of Retail
5 trends reshaping the future of retail in 2019 and beyond!
You’re obsessed with the future of retail. We’re obsessed with the future of retail.
Every CEO, senior executive, CMO and CIO is obsessed. Every trend firm, every consultancy. Everyone. Right?
Except, that is for consumers. Billions of them. Consumers don’t think about retail the same way we do. They don’t go through the day with terms like ‘omnichannel’, ‘m-commerce’, or ‘mobile responsive’ floating around their heads.
They don’t care about your Last Mile problem, or your Bezos-eats-your-lunch problem. Consumers don’t lose sleep over the Retail Apocalypse.
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Accelerating Expectations
The thing is, you’re right to be obsessed.
Because while consumers may not care about the future of retail, they’re still busy creating that future. They’re fueled by a set of unchanging human needs. And their expectations never stand still. They want greater convenience. They want better value. They want excitement, meaning, status, relevance, authenticity, social connection and more.
It’s the relentless consumer quest to fulfil those needs that drives every change we see in the retail arena. The demise of Toys R Us. Alibaba’s record USD 25 billion Singles Day. JD.com’s pledge to open 1,000 physical stores a day – yes, you read that right – in 2019. Amazon delivering to the trunk of your car. It’s brutal out there.
But don’t start feeling smug if you’re not a retail business. These powerful consumer expectation shifts may arise within retail, but they’ll quickly spread to your industry, too.
There is no shortage of high-level overviews of the state of retail, and the broad forces reshaping it. With this publication we went a different route. We’re not here to talk about the new wave of automated stores, the ongoing rise of direct to consumer, the march of offline-to-online retail brands, or the opportunities presented by Tier II and III.
Yes, they’re all crucial ongoing trends. But we know they’re already on your radar. Instead, in this this report we’ll highlight five key tactical trends that are reshaping consumer expectations in 2019 and beyond. These are trends that you can use. Trends that can fuel your next winning product, service, campaign, experience, platform, business model and more.
1. MAGIC POINT OF SALE
Consumers now expect to summon retail brands as they would a genie from a lamp.
2. DEEP RETAIL
In 2019, smart retail brands know their customers better than customers know themselves.
3. CULTURE CLUBS
Your internal culture is your brand. So do more to help your people flourish.
4. A-COMMERCE
From discovery to delivery, retail brands are automating the customer journey.
5. PRACTICAL POST-DEMOGRAPHICS
Inclusive marketing is no longer enough. Time to to reimagine everything you do around true diversity.
So, enough preamble. Let’s do this. And remember, these trends are opportunities waiting to happen. After you read, take action!
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1. MAGIC POINT OF SALE
Consumers now expect to summon retail brands as they would a genie from a lamp.
Yes, the impact of mobile-empowered consumers is STILL playing out. Better m-commerce stores, better direct-to-consumer apps (Nike's SNKRS is the poster child) and the admittedly later than expected arrival of meaningful AR experiences are all reframing expectations when it comes to how, where and when customers can engage with your brand.
One consequence?
In 2018, consumers expect to summon retail experiences as they would a genie from a lamp, called forth from a smartphone, personal assistant, smart speaker, or even from the physical environment itself. That means summoning an on-demand MAGIC POINT OF SALE that allows them to engage with your brand, browse products, test and purchase in innovative new ways.
POINT & KNOW. Yep, this trend has its roots in another that we've been tracking since forever. Now that bolt-on visual search capability – see Amazon Rekognition from AWS – is available to retail brands large and small, the promise of a totally shoppable physical environment is finally being realized. Like the sneakers you're looking at right now? Just point your device for purchase options!
ARKit. iOS 11 was the biggest thing to happen to AR ever. We're at the beginning of a long phase of AR innovation that will prove revolutionary for retail and drive the emergence of a million geotagged MAGIC POINTS OF SALE.
Context is everything. Expectations of instant personalization and total relevance are still climbing. One glimpse? People are even changing the way they search on Google: there has been a 60% growth in mobile searches for '__ for me' and 80% growth in mobile searches for '__ should I __' in the past two years (Google, January 2018). The inevitable next step? Retail brands that go beyond simply knowing the consumer, and start reaching out and serving them in the physical context they happen to be in at that moment.
In a nutshell? We're talking about empowered shoppers who want you to leverage new channels, technologies and platforms to be in the right place at the right time.
Yes, this has huge implications. But before we get into that, let’s look at some brands already presenting the M-POS.
Examples
YOUR MOVE
Sure, we're going to see a whole ton of retail brands delivering an AR-fueled MAGICAL POINT OF SALE (M-POS) in the coming months. You too?But while mobile, AR and M-POS are intimately linked, mobile is not the only channel via which an M-POS can be delivered. See how Alibaba and InTime transformed the shopping mall restroom into an interactive point of sale. Which unlikely locations can you transform into a retail opportunity? Where does your customer spend their time? Where might they delight in summoning you?
And remember, this trend is about convenience – 'be there when I need you' – but it can be about far more than that, too. See how Nike proved that an M-POS can deliver an immersive, entertaining experience in its own right. As expectations grow that m-commerce be not simply easy but also entertaining, a deep understanding of your customer’s culture combined with well-orchestrated gamification can go a long way to help you stand out.
Omnipresent, efficient and delightful. It isn't easy to make magic happen. But you’ve got no excuse for not trying!
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In the coming weeks and months, they'll be using the platform to ensure their plans remain deeply aligned with what their customers want next.
2. DEEP RETAIL
In 2019, smart retailers know their customers better than customers know themselves.
For years now every customer with a smartphone has been a human data source, endlessly spinning off the GPS information, Likes, searches, purchases, views and more that allow retailers to know them better.
But now that journey is reaching a definitive inflection point when it comes to retail. In 2018, consumers will expect retail brands to put new forms of data to work – think emotional data, eye tracking, DNA and more – to offer personalization that proves they know customers better than customers know themselves.
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Primed and Ready. This is about a personalization and targeting journey that began in waaaay simpler times, back when 'customers who bought 1984 also bought Brave New World' was a revolution. We all know where a part of that journey has taken us. To the kind of data-driven behavioral targeting that is seeing food brand Knorr offer personalized recipes based on a consumer's Instagram feed. (Oh, and to an existential crisis for democracy, obvs.) Now, DEEP RETAIL personalization is the next step.
Deep State: This shift is being driven by the maturing of a raft of technologies that mean access to new and more powerful forms of personal data. The cost of sequencing an entire human genome has fallen below USD 1,000. Face recognition is now how people use their iPhone. No wonder Walmart filed a patent for tech that will detect the emotional state of shoppers as they walk around the store.
Me Me Me. Yes there are widespread privacy concerns. But never discount consumers' ability to want two things at once: expectations of data-driven personal relevance are only accelerating. A staggering 54% of consumers expect to receive a personalized discount within 24 hours of making themselves known to a brand, and 71% express frustration at impersonal shopping experiences (Segment, October 2017).
How to sum all this up? In 2018, retailers must make the leap from customer experience (CX) to intimate experience (IX). Ready?
Examples
YOUR MOVE
Okay, this trend can feel a bit Black Mirror. And the eBay and Saatchi Gallery 'track shopper brainwaves' example is more in the realm of interesting experiment than workable innovation. For now.But step back from the urge to dismiss this trend as too far out to be relevant. In fact, it's urgent.
At heart, DEEP RETAIL is simply about the next – and inevitable – evolution of the long personalization story we've all been tracking for so long. Not asking consumers what they want, or getting them to co-create with you, but discerning their deepest preferences via new forms of data.
In the months ahead millions of consumers will come into contact with this next-stage personalization, and that won't be only via the retail industry: just see Air New Zealand using emotional data to make personalized holiday recommendations to travelers.
So start by asking yourself three questions:
What kind of deep data could you have access to across the entire customer journey? Online behaviors? Emotional response? Attention? DNA?
How could you leverage that data to discern hidden, unarticulated, even unconscious preferences among customers?
How will you tailor your services to the preferences you discover?
And if you want to apply this trend, don’t forget the prime directive here: be 100% transparent about the data you want to collect, how you plan to use it, and how you'll protect it.
3. CULTURE CLUBS
Consumers will demand retail brands do more to promote the flourishing of their own staff.
Last year we highlighted this: your internal culture is ever-more visible, and that means it's an ever-more important part of your public-facing brand. That’s an epic, transparency-fueled shift sweeping across the entire business arena, and the consequences will play out for years. But one way in which that trend has become acute for retail brands? It's all about people.
In 2018, consumers will seek out, engage with and recommend retail brands that build better internal cultures for their own people. That means building CULTURE CLUBS that find new and innovative ways to protect, reward and promote the flourishing of all kinds of staff.
This trend taps into a deep and ever-more pressing choice for any retail brand in 2018. Are you about speed, convenience and low prices, or are you about an amazing, immersive, human experience? Are you trying to save customer attention or seize it?
Because if you fall on the amazing experience side of that equation – if you're competing on creativity, curation, human connection or a thousand other experiential factors – then building a CULTURE CLUB might just be the only way to ensure you can retain and cultivate the staff needed to do that.
BAD REP. The retail industry is synonymous with underpaid, overworked, high turnover workers (it almost feels unfair to single out Amazon and Walmart, but hey, we just did). No wonder employee turnover in the retail industry is 5% per month according to Bloomberg. In a transparent environment, the way retail brands treat their people will become an increasingly important part of the way consumers perceive them as a brand.
CHECK MY ETHICS. We hear what you're thinking: yes, plenty of consumers will continue to prioritise low cost over everything else, including worker welfare. But we are in an environment in which rising numbers of consumers see ethical choices as a key status play: 'I am more ethical, I am more enlightened than the rest'.
LOYALTY PLAY. In an age of rising and ubiquitous retail automation, one way to stand out? Go the other way and cultivate a high-touch, experiential offering that's all about human contact, creativity and expertize. The first step if you want to do that? Create a CULTURE CLUB that induces your key staff to stay with you, and so allows customers to form deep, loyal relationships with individual staff members.
Yep, as that last bullet hints at, this trend taps deep into the fundamental dichotomy facing any retail business. More on that in YOUR MOVE. First, featured innovations...
Examples
YOUR MOVE
First, building cultures that allow your people to flourish is the right thing to do. So do it!But as we talked about above, this trend is also about making a choice when it comes to the dichotomy facing any retail brand in 2018. Automation, speed, convenience and low prices? Or human creativity, curation, expertize and relationships? Which field are you going to compete on?
Building a true culture of flourishing means taking decisions that run deep and make real change. But as the Best Buy example above illustrates, a simple gesture can speak volumes about the kind of culture you are trying to create.
And by the way, if you do plan to automate your staff away and compete on speed and low prices, you can still build a CULTURE CLUB. Indeed, as consumers become ever-more concerned about the social impacts of automation, they'll start to demand that the automation-minded brands are taking steps to help staff flourish once they've left. Cue news of the Amazon Career Choice initiative, which is seeing Amazon pay up to USD 12,000 for staff on hourly wages to study for new jobs in in-demand professions such as healthcare and I.T.
So your first question: are we about attention saving or attention seizing? Of course, you might fall on different sides of the equation at different moments in the customer journey. The key thing is to know that. And then build your CULTURE CLUBS accordingly.
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4. A-COMMERCE
From discovery to delivery, retail brands are automating the customer journey.
Yes, we're mentioning 'automation' and 'retail' in the same breath. Cue visions of the millions of retail jobs projected to be automated away, right? Well, okay. But this should also be on your radar...
In 2018 shoppers are outsourcing a whole host of retail experiences to algorithms, automation and smart devices: that means the automation of hunting, negotiating, purchasing, delivery arrangements and more.
Yes, consumers are concerned about automation-fueled unemployment. But never underestimate the human ability to feel multiple and contradictory things at the same time! Many of the same consumers worried about job displacement are already hunting out brands that harness automation to make their lives better.
Outsourced Life. This trend is driven by a newly emerging but deep consumer expectation. That is, that you can outsource decision-making to brands and trust them to deliver on your unique needs. That expectation has burrowed deep into the consumer psyche via a host of 'we do the thinking for you' subscription services: think razors, cars, music, food, and more. The subscription e-commerce market in the US has grown over 100% a year over the past 5 years (McKinsey & Company, February 2018).
AI hype cycle. You saw this, right? Your customers saw it too. Yep, Google Duplex will soon be booking haircuts for users around the globe. No wonder expectations of AI-fueled outsourcing – 'find me the right product, negotiate the best deal, book my next appointment!' – are escalating.
Emergent properties. Consumers can see a whole host of technologies are maturing: face recognition, voice recognition, image recognition. Taken together, these technologies make new forms of A-COMMERCE possible. And what's possible will soon be expected. A full 80% of Chinese prosumers look forward to automatic refrigerator refills (Havas, December 2017).
The examples below show the broad spectrum of implications for this trend, and they go beyond auto-replenishment (FYI, Target is getting involved). Get inspired:
Examples
YOUR MOVE
First, let's acknowledge that Revolut's location-triggered travel insurance is a forehead slapping 'WHY didn’t someone do that already?' kind of idea!At its heart is a simple principle: harness customer context (in this case location) to automate a purchasing process and so save the customer time. So one simple question to get started on this trend: what customer contexts could you harness in order to automate part of the process of engaging with and buying from you?
But every one of the featured examples here is a signal of where consumer expectations are heading.
And you don't need to use technology to meet the expectation at the heart of this trend (though of course technology will probably be needed to deliver a solution at scale). Your flesh and blood staff could always be better at recognizing when and where – even when they are out of store – a shopper might need advice or want one of your products.
Where will A-COMMERCE head in the coming years? Rising numbers of consumers will feel comfortable outsourcing much of their retail to AIs and smart assistants, leaving those virtual entities to find the best products, prices and experiences. Time to start thinking now about what it means for you when you're selling to AIs as often as you are to humans.
5. PRACTICAL POST-DEMOGRAPHICS
Inclusive marketing is no longer enough. Time to to reimagine everything you do around true diversity.
Of course, that's 100% a change for the better. It's just not enough. In 2018 consumers will no longer be impressed by brands that only point towards diversity in their campaigns and messaging.
Instead, consumers will demand that brands reimagine their offerings around the wants and needs of a truly diverse set of customers. That means products, services, physical spaces, and engagement processes that cater to everyone, including traditionally marginalized groups.
POST-DEMOGRAPHICS. Yes, this taps into a mega-trend we've been talking about for a long time: the rise of a POST-DEMOGRAPHIC world. A world in which many consumers are more free than ever before to construct, inhabit – and in many cases – celebrate the identities of their choosing, not ones determined for them by their age, gender, location, income and more.
PRIVILEGE CHECKS. A connected world has given traditionally marginalized groups new ways to come together and demand action for change: see #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter and more. Now, rising numbers are demanding that brands finally give them the recognition and service they deserve.
SPENDING SHIFT. The POST-DEMOGRAPHIC liberation of older people from traditional expectations means many are spending on all kinds of new, non-traditional and unexpected products and services. Time for the business to catch up! According to research, 86% of marketers overestimate how much consumers under the age of 35 spend, whilst 72% underestimate how much consumers 55 and older spend (Age of Majority, October 2017).
Need any further persuading of the vast demand out there for products that celebrate traditionally marginalized groups? Consider the phenomenal success of Black Panther: as of April 2018, the third highest-grossing movie of all time in the US.
Ready to apply some PRACTICAL POST-DEMOGRAPHICS? Check out these examples first.
Examples
YOUR MOVE
We're always talking about how great innovation starts with one question: how can we give people something of value? That means serving fundamental human needs and wants.But for too long now we – business, society, all of us – have overlooked marginalized groups when we come to think about those human needs and wants. What about the needs of older consumers? What about those with disabilities? We could go on.
Making a change and applying some PRACTICAL POST-DEMOGRAPHICS is the way to put that right. And to offer something of value to many – maybe even millions more – people.
Sure, technology can help: think about the ASOS AR-fueled app that shows outfits on different body types. But as the Costa Coffee Chatty Cafes example proves, making a positive change can be as simple as putting a sign on a table.
A powerful first step? Listen. Go out and ask as wide a range of people as possible – including those you've overlooked in the past – how it feels to engage with you and how it could be better.
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THE BIGGER PICTURE
The five trends featured here present five key new directions in the future of retail. Of course, these five trends represent just a small fraction of the trends currently reshaping the consumer landscape.
At TrendWatching, we’re obsessed with those trends. And we’ve been tracking them across the globe and in 16 B2C industries for longer than we care to remember.
Clients of our Premium Service have access to our entire Trend Framework, built around the 16 mega-trends that define modern consumerism. Beneath those sit 120+ actionable trends, all illustrated with 15,000+ hand-curated, best practice innovations. Plus a host of simple, powerful ideation tools to help turn trends into concrete new ideas.
It’s an entire trend department ready to go. If you’re serious about trends, it’s a no-brainer.
GET GOING
We’ve stressed this all along but just in case you missed it: these trends are opportunities. Opportunities to create your next retail product, service, platform, app, experience, or business model. Opportunities to delight existing consumers and win new ones.
That means they’re useless if you don’t act.
But you don’t have to start with a two-day ideation session, a week-long hackathon, or a pitch to the CEO (that can all come later). Here’s a minimum viable first step. Just take a single innovation example featured here back to your team and ask one simple question: when people see this, what will they start to expect from us?
That question encapsulates everything that’s important about Trend-Driven Innovation. That is, that game-changing innovations – such as those featured in this report – create new customer expectations. That those expectations once created will spread, and eventually find you. And that if you can see those expectations coming in advance and innovate to meet them, you can win!
So start with one innovation and a simple question. Once the debate is raging, hit them with some trend theory and win some kudos. Do it today!
And good luck :)
About The Author:
IT TAKES A TEAM
This Trend Briefing has many hands on it. A huge thanks to the team that pulled this together with such positivity and enthusiasm, especially: Vicky Kim and Nikki Ritmeijer (for design!), and also Maxwell Luthy, Vicki Loomes, Henry Mason, Alida Urban, Harry Metzger, Harvey Gomez, Jonathan Herbst, Lisa Feierstein, and Tash Cohen. THANK YOU!