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Our retail experts are on a never-ending mission to make connections, start conversations and engage the debate around emerging trends in retail. You can read regular blogs from various members of the team here, all with their own unique angles on defining best-practice. We also share thought-leadership pieces from our wider community. Above all, these pieces aren't the last word, they are part of the debate. As ever, we'd love to hear your thoughts...
The ‘make or break’ 2020s for Retailers are already seeing a vigorously refreshed focus on how to get the most out of the physical store. One idea whose time has finally come is to make stores double as content creation hubs. There’s a definite trend underway with an increasing number of stores giving over physical space to content creation, driven by
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I had a lightbulb moment at the weekend, without the lightbulb (an LCD moment, perhaps?): digital-shelf-edge is going to change stores completely. At this time of year my thoughts tend to turn to NRF as all our planning goes up a gear. I was wondering what innovations would be making an impact on the expo floor this weekend when a friend showed
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What will be the three biggest trends in retail for 2018? Personalisation, personalisation, and personalisation. In case you think my opening statement is just about me wanting to disrupt or satirise the usual template for these start-of-year trends-to-watch articles – it’s not. Personalisation will be ubiquitous, and will carry other trends (analytics, customer experience, machine learning, voice) before it. Personalisation has
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The Direct to Consumer (D2C) wave continues to gain power and momentum. That this represents something of a threat to retailers can’t be ignored – but it also represents opportunity, if retailers are brave enough to embrace change and rethink relationships. Digital River were the hosts for ‘Ecommerce Accelerated’, an insightful and inspiring one-day conference. I joined a packed and expectant
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What’s the link between experimentation, innovation and failure? It’s probably closer, and more predictable, than you might think. Two things are on my mind from the last month: innovation, and failure. These two thoughts were prompted by two things. The first was a genuinely thought-provoking keynote speech at Retail Week’s technology conference by Amazon’s VP for Global Innovation, Paul Misener. The
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It’s that time of year again, when retailers’ thoughts turn to the last Friday in November… I was going to write that the Black Friday publicity seems like it gets earlier every year, then thought that makes me sound like an old fogey. Then I thought I’d do a quick check, and it looks like it objectively does get earlier every
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Four years ago you couldn’t move for hitting an article about NFC. Then things seemed to go quiet. But thanks to the most adored tech brand on the planet, NFC may be about to hit its tipping point. For those non-tech geeks among us, a very quick reminder… Near Field Communications (NFC) technology enables devices in very close proximity (a couple of
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To borrow a line from cultural commentator Ken Hughes, Innovation is like sex when you’re a teenager – everyone else claims they’re doing it. Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes. From all directions. Why is Innovation (and its pushy cousin, Disruption) so important to retailers today? Bluntly: because consumers now expect it, and because if you stand still too long
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For me, it was last Thursday night at the inaugural Retail Tonight dinner. Having one visionary, mind-expanding speaker in attendance was wonderful – having two was extraordinary. Around 80 senior retailers came together in the remarkable surroundings of One Belgravia in Mayfair for a four course meal hosted by sixteen leading retail technology companies with their own tables. Networking and discussion
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It has quickly become something of a marketing commonplace to say that consumers today aren’t just interested in purchases or offers but, increasingly, in experiences. If that’s the case (and I believe it is) then hats off to HPE for going the extra mile to deliver such a compelling, immersive experience at a genuinely exclusive event for senior retail movers
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When we launched Retail Tomorrow we knew we had a success on our hands, so its nomination for a B2B Marketing Award for ‘Best Use of Live Event Marketing’ means we’re definitely doing something right. But what? What made the event different? Retail Tomorrow was a 24-hour conference (spanning 21st-22nd Feb this year) overnight which wanted to do something different with
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