The Retail Business Trends And Prophecies

The retail environment has never changed faster than in the last two years. Brands are more adept at making the real time changes necessary to respond to the unexpected changes that have become so commonplace. Stores are also starting to truly ace omnichannel experiences.

Retail business trends

Brands finally master omnichannel experiences

Creating a seamless omnichannel experience has been an aspiration for most, if not all, brands since around 2015. Many older brands were slow to change, though, and many younger brands were taking a heavily ecommerce-first approach. It wasn’t until the lockdowns of 2020 that retail was forced to make quick pivots towards providing top-notch omnichannel experiences with things like buy online, pick up in-store becoming a hugely popular fulfillment choice.

Social selling hits TikTok in a big way

While TikTok has been a massive hit with users for a few years now, brands have been slow to truly monetize the platform. This is partially due to the fact that TikTok didn’t add advertising to its platform until 2020, and only as recently as late 2021 have announced a system that will make it fairly easy for advertisers to work with them.

Supply chain issues are going to continue impacting stock

Starter small brands are likely to start keeping more inventory in sales locations, using urban warehouses or temporary storage systems. Large retailers have actually begun to charter their own freighters in order to overcome the shortages and maintain a competitive advantage.

Labor shortages will continue to affect pricing

In the wake of pandemic multiple industries are seeing labor shortages as employees refuse to work for low wages in dangerous conditions. Working retail became a life or death or choice for many workers, due to lax safety protocol and more. Plan to pay your employees more to keep them. And expect that the prices of goods, in general, to rise as manufacturers, shipping companies has already announced a shipping rate raise coming in January due to their labor shortage.

Sustainability becomes an expectation

Consumers care more than ever about the sustainability of their habits, and that includes their purchases. In fact, as of 2020, a full 32% of US consumers were already prioritizing companies that are actively reducing their negative environmental impact. A brand’s own sustainability, as well as that of the items they sell, is going to be a key factor of differentiation in the marketplace.

Livestream shopping hits the U.S

In the past few years, Chinese brands have been perfecting a technique called livestream shopping. Reminiscent of QVC, livestream shopping involves a salesperson or influencer discussing products available for immediate purchase on a livestream. The runaway success seen in the Chinese market, American retailers are going to begin to adopt the approach in the upcoming year. 

Buy-now pay-later purchasing methods

Over the past two to three years, companies like Affirm and Afterpay have made a huge impact on consumer expectations. Paypal alone saw a shocking increase on Black Friday in BNPL transactions.

Experiential retail ramps up

The pandemic ironically proved the value consumers see in brick-and-mortar shopping when global lockdowns hit. While stores could pivot and still offer same-day pick-up options for necessary goods, it became evident that many people enjoy the socializing and entertainment that can be found in stores.

Retention takes the center stage for retailers

As customer acquisition prices have been skyrocketing in the last few years, marketers have been pushing the importance of customer retention more. Though, retention will finally become the official focus of many, many brands.  We may be about to see the decline in the boom of small eCommerce shops as they get priced out of being able to even get their first customer.

Conclusion

They’re going to start executing in a big way on the learnings of the past two years. Many of the things that retailers only dreamed of a decade ago will become a reality.