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…
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…
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…
How can retailers compete with Amazon? This is the question that my co-author Miya Knights and I get asked most since publishing our book earlier this year. First, let’s address the myth that Amazon is a retailer. It’s not. Amazon is a technology company with deep pockets, an appetite for 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…
I’m so excited to launch, in partnership with retail technology leader Red Ant, the first of a three-part series of whitepapers to explore how the retail industry will have to embrace the digital store and seamless shopping to survive, from frictionless checkout to hyper-personalisation and clienteling. There’s no doubt that Read more…
The phrase ‘the Amazon effect’ brings to mind images of boarded-up shops and retail bankruptcies. We think of the 2,700 stores that shut or the 80,000 retail jobs that disappeared in the UK in the first half of 2018 alone. E-commerce, and Amazon in particular, is often positioned as the Read more…