Opportunities for post-pandemic retail
I attended the Retail Technology Exhibition at Olympia earlier this year. On the one hand, it was fabulous to be back at an in-person, live event, and on the other, I’m clearly out of practice – I was exhausted when I got home, and I wasn’t even there all day!
In addition to the myriad of payment providers, point of sale terminals and various other seemingly homogenous technologies aimed at the retail market, one stand that caught my eye was Akousitc Arts. They were demonstrating their directional sound speakers – only people in the targeted area can hear the sound. It was quite surreal to stand in front of the speaker and be able to hear the sound of nesting birds, only to move 1 step to the left or the right and lose the sound altogether. There are so many applications for this technology the mind boggles, and one of the key benefits is it reduces noise pollution, something many neurodiverse people find difficult across retail and hospitality environments.
More generally, a common theme reflected throughout the exhibition and associated conference, was the significant changes in consumer expectations, largely as a result of the pandemic.
There’s some good news in here for retailers. For example a report by Adyen “The Great Expectation Gap”[i] found that post-pandemic, consumers are remaining loyal to those who were there for them during the challenging months of the pandemic:
"I'll stick with the businesses I used during the pandemic." UK 53%
During the various lockdowns, to survive, retailers introduced collection and delivery services they had not previously provided. And consumers, now they’ve had a taste for it, aren’t about to go back to their old ways. The terminology – omnichannel is used to describe a shopping experience which crosses historically understood channels. These were online, or in-store. Now consumers want a blend; buy online and collect in-store (click and collect), buy online and return to the store, or buy in-store and return by post.
During the pandemic, the volume and total value of omnichannel transactions spiked, and the data show that shoppers that buy across several channels spend twice as much. This is an opportunity for the recovering retail industry. And the importance of a physical store is still key.
"I prefer to shop in a physical store." UK 50%
The challenge however is how to implement these strategies sustainably. And when I say sustainable, I’m not at this point talking about environmental sustainability, I mean sustainable for growth. It’s one thing to offer customers a phone number they can call to order a local delivery when that’s your only way of making a sale during a lockdown – it’s quite another to continue to do this when the high street is becoming more buoyant, you’re struggling to recruit staff, and those you have are busy running a store.
And when you factor in the idea of taking orders online via a website, processing those orders and having them ready for your customer to collect when they arrive a few hours later, the logistics and organization involved impact almost every business process.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring in more depth some of the challenges faced by our high street and online retailers, in responding to this paradigm shift of expectations.
If you can’t wait for the weekly episodes – you can download the full report here:
[i] https://www.adyen.com/en_GB/blog/expectation-gap-report