Trends in retail: what innovations will change the market in 2025
06.04.2023 18:16
The coronavirus crisis and the war have forced companies to look for new ways to develop. For many, relying on innovation has proved to be a lifeline both to maintain current profits and increase business productivity.
Despite the economic crisis, rising energy prices, the cost of purchasing goods, and a decline in people's purchasing power, retailers continue to invest in the development of artificial intelligence and technology. These tools help their customers to get a new shopping experience, better service, and make services accessible and safe for more users.
What technological solutions do companies implement in their processes to meet and exceed customer expectations?
E-commerce digitalisation
According to the Euromonitor research centre, consumers will continue to set trends in commerce in 2054. The main requests of customers are automation of the purchase process, availability of a cheap segment of goods and a clean reputation of the brand in its political views. At the same time, about 40% of the surveyed companies plan to invest in automation and robotics to ensure a comfortable search for goods for consumers.
Retail chains and entrepreneurs are opening their own online stores, which not only facilitate better communication with customers but also offer a number of advantages of online shopping:
- speed and accessibility of the choice of goods according to the required characteristics,
- delivery of goods directly from an offline store or warehouse,
- the absence of a human factor when placing an order, etc.
In 2025, the development of online commerce is moving towards automation and robotics. In particular, companies are using voice assistants to help customers search for goods online, which significantly speeds up the customer's path to purchase. It is also possible to use voice robot prompts to help guide the customer in their choice.
For a company to use voice assistants, it needs to expand the semantic core of the website, speed up page loading, and adapt the website to mobile devices.
Personalised communication with chatbots
Artificial intelligence is being implemented in almost all spheres of life. Western entrepreneurs have long appreciated the possibility of personalised communication based on AI to boost online sales.
Online order processing is a reality that sellers face every day. If the scale of the business is such that several managers cannot cover all contacts with the store, robots are indispensable. Chatbots can not only inform customers but also learn how to communicate with them. And most importantly, they don't have shifts, days off, lunch or coffee breaks, and are able to respond to all customer requests around the clock.
However, we shouldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that many people are annoyed by communication with bots, especially when they are unable to adequately understand the customer's request. Therefore, it is important to find a golden mean, which is different for each type and scale of business.
Changing the retail format
In big cities, the growing pace of life, lack of free time, and the reduction in the number of large families for whom it would be justified to make large purchases all explain the need to switch to a more compact format.
Large shopping centres are becoming a thing of the past. Instead, more and more mini format stores are appearing in residential areas. Outlets that open in modern new buildings have a competitive advantage over others. They benefit from the audience's awareness of the neighbourhood, personalised assortment, comfortable premises and favourable product display.
Examples of such changes are popular American retail chains such as Target, Market by Macy's, Bloomies, Schnucks Fresh, Kohl's, etc. In Ukraine, convenience stores are well developed: "KOLO, Lotok, Produkty, Delvi, VolWest Retail. In Poland, there is the Żabka chain of stores.
All of them are designed to make shopping faster and easier.
In addition, there are collaborations between large brands and small ones. It is more profit
able for specialised brands to be represented in larger retail chains. At the same time, it is also convenient for customers themselves: they will reduce the number of shopping trips. For example, the French luxury cosmetics brand Sephora intends to open its outlets in 850 stores of the US retail chain Kohl's.
Sales growth in social media
According to the international consulting company Accenture, over the next 4 years, social media sales will grow three times faster than traditional online commerce. Sales on social media are already a success. Online shopping on a social network is usually faster than on a website, provided that the page is developed.
Another advantage of selling on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok is that you can promote your products and services with the help of influencers, who do their job as well and often better than marketers. Moreover, they already have a dedicated and loyal audience that will do whatever they are asked to do.
Analytics with artificial intelligence
Predictive analytics is a technology for predicting the future using neural networks based on available data. With the help of machine learning and Big Data technologies in the processing of large data sets, sellers will be able to predict market trends and consumer sentiment, which will directly affect the determination of the store's assortment and the most popular products.
Predictive analysis tools will help marketers track customer actions on the company's website, know which pages and product categories they view most often, and, depending on this, build targeted advertising or create individual offers for customers.
In addition to product promotion planning, predictive analytics can be connected to supply chains, procurement planning, and management.
It can be integrated into any database, your own TMS or CRM system. For example, the Torgsoft software already includes predictive analysis algorithms for determining the range of goods and understanding the product life cycle in the store.
Automation of business processes
Data analytics allows sellers to find out when to replenish or sell out of stocks in warehouses, which products need to be disposed of, and which are in high demand. In addition, to run a competitive and productive business, it is crucial to properly control all processes. And this is achieved through trade automation.
These tasks are perfectly solved by the Torgsoft accounting programme. Its functions are widely used in business:
- management of the turnover of goods - receipt and sale, returns, movement, distribution between outlets,
- store assortment accounting,
- sales analytics management - identifying demand trends, generating reports, tracking actions and motives of customer behaviour in the CRM system,
- creating a loyalty programme for customers and personalised messages,
- improving the quality of service by understanding the life cycle of goods,
- calculating profit, controlling daily expenses and income, etc.
Personalised offers are more in trend than ever
Customers continue to choose those companies and brands that offer them personalised offers - in emails or messengers, or when talking to a manager on the phone. According to Oracle's research, customers will choose a company that provides personalised recommendations for the selection of goods, even if the prices are higher than usual.
Customised offers can be generated based on customers' age, gender, season, search history, and purchasing behaviour.
New ways to interact with Generation Alpha
Generation Alpha is the children of mostly millennials born since 2011. While Generation Z, which precedes it, uses social media for self-expression, for Generation A, social media is a way of life, a place where they learn everything from games, eating habits, fashion to the main events in the world. That's why retailers should start developing marketing strategies now to capture the attention of these young people, who will have a huge purchasing power in the near future.
Visual search
One of the growing trends in retail is product search using photos. Customers simply take a photo of the product they want to buy and upload it to an app for identification. This way of searching for information is much faster than the traditional way of entering queries in words. You can either connect your website to the Google Lens service or develop your own analogues.
The spread of video analytics and navigation systems
Indoor positioning systems include devices that can be used to determine the location of objects or people. These include in-store WI-FI, smartphones, digital cameras, customer watches, Bluetooth antennas, and CCTV cameras.
Indoor object location has been one of the key technology trends in retail over the past few years. Although it is expensive to implement a video surveillance system in retail premises, it is a promising trading tool.
Among other things, navigation systems in offline stores help customers gain a unique user experience and sellers drive sales through enhanced visitor statistics and product placement analytics.
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Інформаційні технології можуть вивести торговельну комерцію на якісно новий рівень. Технології квантових обчислень, розробки в галузі GreenTech та Deep Tech, технічні інновації штучного інтелекту можуть значно полегшити процес розробки проектів та оптимізації системи. Це відноситься до майбутнього розвитку багатьох сфер, зокрема логістики. У цьому контексті варто згадати про платформу доставки, що дозволяє точно розраховувати вартість доставки після реєстрації, пропонуючи різноманітні функції для покращення логістичних процесів. Вони також проводять розрахунки від інтелектуальних ризиків до нижчих послуг, таких як доставка на палетах