Working in Retail has always influenced my outlook of shopping. Even entering a small store and I start mapping a customer journey of how it can be improved and over the years how it has improved. What has made me pen this is the day spent today in a small town Khatu in Rajasthan, India where to be precise three years back cash was a necessity for shopping. I remember visiting the market and actually making sure to find an ATM first every time I visited. Here comes 2020 and every store specially the small ones has a QR waiting to be scanned for payments. 2020 drilled a hole in time and out came the innovative trends laying the foundation of what we thought would be the future of Retail.
Over the years, the customer’s want of convenience has evolved into a necessity. The concept of personalized offers, extraordinary customer care are not new but have never been this important. A customer’s outlook to shopping has completely changed and the focus from buying the product has shifted to the process of buying the product. Retailers like Amazon investing in creating a seamless experience and traditional retailers following through is the biggest evidence of the need of understanding the Customer. The rapid innovations and ever-changing customer preferences keeps the industry experts guessing what is next? However, this year all the trends predicted for 2025 are coming alive and kicking markets. Right from Social Commerce to Touchless Retail every imagined scenario is live and Omni-Channel is the only truth that holds good for Retailers.
It does seem like a paradox that the immediate needs have propelled us into the expected future of Retail. The pandemic has been the catalyst to adopt and to adopt quick for every industry that believes in pleasing the customer. So what needs to be changed and what needs to stay?
The only mandate is Go Digital – According to Salesforce reports – In 2020 the experience that mattered most to customers was a decentralized and mostly digital only experience powered by e-commerce capabilities. Global digital sales grew 36% year-over-year, Mobile comprised 71% of traffic and 55% of orders, while desktop saw 26% of traffic and 41% of orders YoY. We have witnessed 10 years of accelerated e-commerce adoption in the past few months of 2020. According to McKinsey, over 75% of U.S. consumers have changed shopping behavior based on top three reasons – value, availability and convenience making them shift to new brands during the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital Commerce, contact-less payments, order online curbside pickup, and home delivery are all requirements in order to compete in the next normal. Salesforce research shows that U.S. retailers offering creative pickup options experienced 29% growth in sales compared to 22% in retailers who had a simple fulfillment option.
Going by the figures the adoption of innovation enables the retailers to sustain and makes the players re-evaluate their strategy around technology. The four major areas that the Retailers should look out for are as follows:
1. Convenience & Personalization to create the bond of Loyalty – The customer’s journey to the product has become as important as the product itself and anything that enhances the journey would give the required edge needed by the Retailer. The more curated the experience according to the customer’s preference the more engaged and loyal the customer will become.
2. Analytics is key to Personalization – Data has always been the power tool that changes the complete game. Data & analytics are the tools that help cater and create the right experience for every target customer. Segmentation is going to go beyond just one-time sales and loyal customers. It is going to be a lot about the customer’s interaction with the Retailer. Knowing price-sensitive customers, their preferences around spending, choices and so on. So leveraging data can be the Game Changer for Retailers.
3. Omni-Channel Fulfillment is a Mandate – Even in the most basic purchases these days a customer interacts through multiple touch points or channels. In a picture like this, the only struggle is when the chain breaks. An online purchase that cannot be returned in a store or an offline purchase does not have the same discounts as an online sale might not only put the customer away but in the present disrupts the brand image completely by a single social review. A seamless fulfilment of customer’s expectation is a necessity.
4. Social Commerce for engaging the customer right away – Social selling is not new to the millennials but in the coming year it will become more popular. Retailers will investment in social platforms by pushing the checkout closer to the edges of social media experiences by adopting commerce capabilities provided by these social platforms. Retailer will leverage their expanding relationships with brands and social influencers as accelerant to grow sales.
Retail has never been this fascinating especially with the future almost here, a lot of innovation and disruption is sure to happen in 2021. Let us embark on the roller coaster in 2021 and keep a watch on this ever-changing and mesmerizing world of Retail.
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