July 2020 – NBK Retail

What is the secret to Amazon’s success in a nutshell? A relentless dissatisfaction with the status quo. Love or loathe it, we have to credit Amazon for stamping out complacency in retail. Fast and free delivery, one-click shopping, user-generated reviews, checkout-free stores, voice shopping, the list goes on. If Amazon didn’t exist, shoppers today would be far more tolerant of mediocre retail experiences.

Covid-19 has further fuelled its appetite for disruption. This week Amazon hit the nuclear button. By offering free delivery of groceries, Amazon is capitalising on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire market share. This is the boldest move it has ever made on this side of the Atlantic, and the worst possible news for the supermarkets who were finally getting comfortable with online deliveries in the middle of a pandemic.

Read the full piece in the Evening Standard.

Last night, I spoke to the BBC about the 12,000 job cuts announced in the UK this week. Retail will certainly not be spared: Harrods, an iconic brand but reliant on international visitors, and Arcadia, a retailer that has quite simply failed to evolve, are collectively cutting 1,000+ jobs. TM Lewin, a brand that has been trading for over a century, is closing all of its shops and focusing exclusively online. Microsoft will be doing similar by shutting virtually all of its stores around the globe. Will 2020 see a reversal of the online-to-offline trend?

Who’s going to be hit worst? Those that failed to adapt pre-crisis of course. We’ll see an acceleration in the demise of mediocre or irrelevant retail. Buckle up, folks. It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

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