Every Retailer Needs To Be
Ready For The 8 Biggest Retail Trends

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved Title Text Introduction Introduction To continue to connect with customers, retailers need to be ready to adapt to the latest worldwide shopping shifts. Here are eight trends retailers should watch. The 8 Biggest Retail Trends Every Retailer Needs To Be Ready For

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved Like every sector, retail is going through a transformation and must respond to the forces of the fourth industrial revolution and major societal shifts. Retailer’s ability to connect with consumers is more critical than ever as shopping habits continue to shift in the midst of the worldwide economic disruption brought on by the pandemic. Keep reading to find out what retailers need to know so they can adapt and succeed in 2021 and beyond.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 1. Retail Is Now Omnichannel We live in a hybrid world where online and offline are merging. New channels are emerging, such as voice (think Alexa and Google Home) and other smart devices. With these changes, machines will increasingly become customers for retailers. For example, appliances like refrigerators could decide it’s time to reorder food. Our cars could look for services or pay for parking automatically. The Internet of Things and sensors enable companies to collect data and metrics across all these different channels, and they need to get a holistic view of their customers. Companies like Burberry have made a lot of progress towards an omnichannel world. If a customer walks into a Burberry store, the store's computer system can identify the items that the customer has looked at online, and even look at their previous purchase history. Bringing these channels together is a key trend for retailers in the future.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 2. Creating smarter services with AI is critical Retailers can now build on the data they have and use it to create more intelligent and AI-enabled services. Customers will expect sophisticated levels of personalization from retailers, so recommendation engines are becoming increasingly important. I've recently written about Vivino, the wine app that has a “Match for You” feature. You can scan any bottle of wine with your phone, and Vivino’s recommendation engine will tell you how likely it is that you will enjoy it. Machine vision is also making retail more intelligent. Amazon Go, the physical retail stores by Amazon, use machine vision to track what customers are looking at, what are putting into their baskets, and then will automatically get charged. Customers can walk straight out the door instead of standing in line to check out.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 3. We Live in an Experience Economy Retailers now need to provide added value to customers, to get them to come into physical stores or onto their websites. We now live in an experience economy, where creating immersive experiences will no longer be optional – it will be crucial for retailers who want to thrive in a post-pandemic world. Gucci’s flagship store in Italy is a great example of enticing in customers by a mixture of cafe, museum, art gallery, and shop. Talk about added value! Retail stores can also consider using augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) to more information to the customer about products in stores and online. TOMs Shoes helps consumers see the impact of their one-for-one giving campaign with a VR experience that virtually transports people to Peru.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 4. Making it easy to buy I refer to this one as “See it, like it, buy it.” When we see a product on TV, in video games, or on YouTube, we want to be able to purchase that product away if we like it. That buying experience needs to be frictionless. This is already possible, in certain circumstances. When we hear a song on radio or when we’re in a cafe, we can identify it using the Shazam app on our phones, and the app will prompt us to buy it. In the future, we will have this ability on YouTube and other places online – so the ability to buy something straight away is an important trend for retailers to be aware of.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 5. Subscription models cut out the middleman Many organizations are now going directly to customers, realizing that this allows them to build much deeper relationships. It also gives them access to valuable customer Companies like Dollar Shave Club and Black Socks are pioneering this approach with subscription-based services for razors and socks, delivered on a monthly or quarterly basis. BarkBox is also using this direct-to-consumer approach to sell customized dog on a subscription basis. This is a hugely important trend for retailers to be aware of right now. Organizations need to find the right balance between retailer sales and selling through their own channels.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 6. Retailers are exploring autonomous delivery and fulfilment Many retailers are looking at ways to automate their supply chain and methods. Companies like Ocado, the technology company that develops software and automation systems for retailers, is doing this very well. They retailers create highly automated warehouses with large hives of robots that work together to create different shopping baskets for customers. On the delivery side, we are also starting to see things like autonomous and ships that deliver goods. I live about 50 miles northwest of London, and here we have Starship Robots that deliver my local grocery shopping. should expect to see more and more automation in the future.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 7. Supply chain transparency is increasingly important Supply chain transparency enables companies to not only understand at a more detailed level – and therefore make predictions about what consumers actually want – but also use IoT devices and sensors to track across their supply chain. Increasingly, organizations are using blockchain technology to make supply chains more transparent. For example, companies like De Beers Jewelers, can now track their diamonds back to the sources where they are mined, and cut, so customers understand exactly where their jewelry is coming from.

© 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard
Marr & Co. All rights reserved 8. People are becoming increasingly conscious consumers This eighth trend ties in closely with the previous one. Consumers want transparency when they’re buying from retailers. They care about sustainability and are becoming increasingly conscious of the environmental impact of the products they’re buying. In the future, we’ll have more labeling of products that include sustainability such as carbon labels, food mile labels, or sourcing information. Retailers need to be thinking ahead about how they’re going to stock their shelves and be prepared to customer questions about the sustainability of their products. Retailers that want to compete in the future successfully need to address all of these trends. For more on future tech and business trends, subscribe to my YouTube channel visit my website, BernardMarr.com.

Bernard Marr is an internationally
best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things. LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that reaches millions of readers. Visit The Website © 2020 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved © 2017 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved © 2020 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker, futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things. LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers and shares content that reaches millions of readers. Visit The Website

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