Shaping the future retail trends

The next decade is seen as the golden age of the consumer, with shoppers spoilt for choices with products and services – often personalised to their needs and wants. On the whole, it’s all about making the retail experience inspirational, stirring, effortless and convenient to fulfil the consumer’s ever-changing needs.

The evolution in consumer demand, combined with transformative technological innovations, will continue to drive fundamental changes. Analysts predict these transformations will cause the retail landscape to change more in the next decade than it has in the past four.

The most debated hot topics of e-commerce is certain to dominate the next decade with penetration growing from approximately 10% today to more than 40% in 2026. Some product categories are likely to register higher rates of penetration of 50% or more, while others may not exceed 20%. Despite growth in e-commerce, the physical store will continue to be the channel that contributes the most revenue for the majority of the leading multichannel retailers until at least 2026.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in its 2017 Retail Industry Trends report highlights some of the major trends that will shape the future retail industry trends.

RetailME published excerpts of the report in the July-August edition