With just a few short months until Retail Technology Show 2023, retail’s golden ticket event, opens its doors to over 8,400 senior retailers at London’s Olympia on 26 & 27 April, its Show Director, Matt Bradley, uncovers the challenges of hybrid retail and shows how tech is enabling retailers to respond.
Most media tends to deal in black and white when it comes to definitions, and it has written continually about the clear division between stores and online since 2000. Today, while it is clear to everyone just how far the dividing line between the two has blurred, we are now in a place that will not be familiar to everyone.
After all, how are we to describe a physical space that is a store by day, an online fulfilment centre by night, a pick-up location for customers at other times, and a hub that delivers experiences as well as a transactional point of sale. The same location may also have allocated space for a commercial kitchen to prepare meals to be delivered to customers. Few retailers now have the luxury of not selling online as a way of getting customers in-store.
Or social media? Did we ever expect it become a commercial channel and think that, according to research undertaken by RTA 61% of adults under 25 years old would now be completing purchases on social networks without leaving the website or app. And now Retail Media Networks have hit the headlines as retailers come to realise the enormous potential of their already high trafficked sites to deliver more eyeballs that will turn to purchase of goods provided by other brands, further intrinsically linking bricks-and-mortar to all things digital.
Is this retail? Of course it is, but not as we know it. And in 2023, ecommerce will become more about the store’s integration than ever before – a key trend we will be covering at the Retail Technology Show 2023, where we will embrace all that retail is and will become, as retail speakers, analysts and tech vendors come together to work out how best to serve the customer that has largely be responsible for bringing about these changes.
What retail has proved is its resilience and its agility in the face of what can seem like demands from customers that are impossible to fill – I want it now and I want it here, I want a ribbon on it, I don’t want to pay to have it delivered and I want hard evidence that you are saving the planet at every step in the supply chain that brought it here.
First of all, the store is moving to this new hybrid model where its survival will depend on it fulfilling many roles, and certainly an ecommerce role. Secondly, tech will be needed to manage the resulting complexity. As Francesca Contardo, ecommerce director at jewellery maker Pandora, says “AI helps us identify the information and services that will influence the customer’s decision today and tomorrow.”
It doesn’t end there. Rebecca Griffiths, CEO and founder of Primis, recently said that “ignoring the post-purchase experience is perilous to future purchasing”, and that’s all about getting the experience in the last mile right. Of course, every mile is key to winning and retaining loyalty and in the current crisis, it was assumed that many schemes would go back to the old model of points mean prizes or discounts. In fact what has happened is, the prizes and other benefits have had to grow to keep the customer’s attention. Personalisation of rewards is improving, enabled by data and AI, as is the breadth of rewards which at Starbucks includes Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
Fundamental to making this personal connection with the customers and tailoring delivery, service, sustainability and rewards accordingly, is the ability to communicate with them across multiple channels that are often deployed for a single purchase. Every single communication has to be accurate, helpful meaningful and consistent, otherwise the hybrid model that see channel overlap fail completely.
Channel overlap though is not the single answer to the survival of those that have been under pressure, notably the store. The store itself has a lot more work to do for those customers that want to visit. Where it was once assumed that the online experience needed to be replicated in store, now it is clear customers expect something different, that will wow them and feel they got something special and just for them. “Retail shouldn’t be aspirational, it should be inspirational – and filled with entertainment and emotion, tapping into all of our senses,” says Ben Marks, director of global market development at Shopware.
This then is about a mixture or right and left brain – arresting creativity through digital signage and augmented reality as well as tech to give staff the tools to manage the customer journey as well as keep the store fully and relevantly stocked.
The Retail Technology Show, taking place on 26 & 27 April 2023 at London Olympia will showcase all the major topics and trends in retail, discussed through six tracks on our conference programme including: leadership workforce and culture; customer obsession and marketing; innovation and the future; e-commerce growth and omnichannel; supply chain, delivery and sustainability; and payments checkout and fraud.
Don’t miss you opportunity to attend retail’s flagship event, register for your ticket today: https://www.retailtechnologyshow.com/mrreg
