Is bricks & mortar retail facing an existential crisis or a rebirth? In a world where shoppers can buy just about anything online and have it delivered the very same or next day, it’s not unreasonable to ask – what is the point of stores? How can stores possibly differentiate Read more…
Future of e-commerce? Stores, of course! Big media day yesterday covering the news that Amazon has debuted its checkout-free store concept in London. This is watershed moment for U.K. retail. Amazon is known for disrupting the status quo, raising customer expectations and forcing competitors to raise their game. Remember Amazon Read more…
Natalie Berg joins Karl McKeever, MD of Visual Thinking, as co-host of The Retail Exchange‘s final podcast episode of the year. If you were trying to end this year by winning a prize for its greatest understatement, you could describe 2020 as ‘eventful’. It is difficult in many respects to Read more…
As Britain’s ‘non-essential’ retailers prepare to reopen their doors in the coming weeks, one of the biggest challenges they face will be convincing shoppers to walk through the door. And, no, I don’t just mean from a safety perspective; I’m talking about the additional friction that shoppers will inevitably encounter. Read more…
Picture this – a radical new grocery concept designed to revolutionize how Americans shop. The store is much smaller than your typical supermarket, around 10,000 square feet and stocking an edited range of just several thousand products. The store doesn’t feature banks of traditional checkouts; instead it’s a heavily automated Read more…
What’s in store for the retail sector in 2020? First, let’s be clear about what’s not changing. We’ll continue to see a bifurcation of winners and losers as the industry sheds itself of status quo retailers (translation: brace yourself for more doom and gloom). The ubiquitously connected ‘on-my-terms’ shopper is here to Read more…
The final whitepaper in our series with Red Ant explores how bricks & mortar stores must evolve to become genuine hubs for fulfilment. The most successful retailers today are those that view their stores as assets not liabilities. As contradictory as it may sound, they understand that the key to growing Read more…
To be relevant in retail today, you have to acknowledge that stores are no longer purely about selling. I believe most high street retailers are on board with this concept, but few are comfortable implementing it. And that’s because for decades, we as an industry have obsessed over metrics such Read more…
In the second of a three-part whitepaper series from Red Ant and NBK Retail, we explore the rise of the experiential store, why retailers must adopt an ‘admission fee’ mentality, and how customer experience is fast becoming the new currency in retail. Despite the high-profile casualties we’ve seen on the high street, it’s Read more…
We all know it’s only a matter of time before Amazon Go reaches UK shores. Trademarks have long been registered, the rumours have been flying and, having debuted in New York City last month, it’s fair to say that Amazon has an appetite for urban expansion. This explains Sainsbury’s recent scramble to open the first Read more…