Future of Retail Industry, future shopping malls, e-commerce, online and offline consumers, impact of…

Keynote on Future of Retail Industry for BNP Paribas (Bulgaria)

Expect a huge revolution in retail trends over the next decade.  The video above takes us through a large number of these issues - ranging from consolidation and emergence of super-chains, to the rise of both budget and premium brands, e-commerce, impact of older consumers - and the total transformation in physical retail, that is being driven by mobile technologies in an "always-connected" world, where offline / online merges into one total customer experience.

Price comparison sites are making things very tough for physical retailers with no online presence - and physical retailers that do have websites are faced with a painful e-commerce choice.  Do they discount the same products online, or do they try to maintain the same prices in store or on the website?

Need a world-class retail keynote speaker? Phone Patrick Dixon now or email. 

If they go with same pricing, they are at severe risk of being undercut by large volume e-commerce discounters who have very few overheads, and run everything from a huge European warehouse (like Amazon).  If they go with online discounting, they risk destroying any profitability that remains in their physical stores.

Globally, online sales already exceed $1 trillion a year.  The UK leads the world in percentage of retail sales that are concluded online - and in some sectors up to 20% of all UK retail spending is now via websites.  To make matters even more difficult, most of the rest of UK retail spending is now influenced by online searching before people go out shopping, and by price comparison sites which customers are checking on their smartphones while they are actually touching physical goods in-store.

Retailing is becoming even more confusing for traditional shops.  In the past people either tended to shop online with home delivery, or shop instore with immediate collection.  But the pattern is now mixed:  people shopping instore for delivery at home, or shopping online for collection instore, or for collection at a petrol station, or another branch of the same store and so on.

View the slides on SlideShareHome delivery patterns are also changing dramatically, with rapid growth of e-commerce collection points for those who do not expect to be at home during working hours.

It's all about understanding the customer, delivering an exceptional customer experience and being highly efficient, saving cost and time.

The video also covers a large number of tips that retailers can follow to increase sales - simple steps like providing seating for relatives outside changing rooms, or faster / easier checkouts.

Other issues covered in the video above:  future of shopping malls, mobile marketing to multichannel customers, ways to increase customer loyalty and engagement, how to improve call-centre customer experience, how decision-making is changing, future of mobile payment systems and impact on retail, and why most retailers are blind in some areas to how consumers actually feel.

See also:  Future of Retailing - 20 key retail trends

Need a world-class retail keynote industry speaker? Phone Patrick Dixon now or email.