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HOW TO ROCK THE FUTURE OF RETAIL – 2020
Omnichannel Customer Experience | Big Data | Supply Chain | Digital Technology
The future of retail isn’t what you think!
Consumers today are more ‘SoLoMo’ –
Social, Local and Mobile. Globally, there is a
shift of multichannel retailing to ‘Omnichannel
Retailing’, which describes a channel-
agnostic view of how consumers-experience
impacts the retail brand. Shoppers expect
retailers to deliver a seamless brand
experience online, in-store and across multichannel media, both consistently
and continuously. This article would discuss some of the key global trends and
benchmark practices that would help retailers to build seamless consumer
experience and long-term profitability in the near future (2020).
Brands today are controlling, enabling and contributing in online discussions.
Social media assists consumer’s choices and even perceptions. Retailers very
soon would try to empower purchases as soon as a potential customer shows
interest, with ‘one-click’ transactions to convert browsers to shoppers straight
from social platforms. For example Amazon Dash is an excellent benchmark for
‘Buy Now with One Click’. There is a clear shift from ‘Push Marketing’ to ‘Client
Marketing’.
While doing an extensive research on my assignment at IESEG, I was inspired
to write this article and share my findings in form of a concrete article. Having
seen the dynamic change in marketing; now, lets understand ‘How an rock the
future of retail-2020’.
1) BIG DATA - In the past retailers focused to get consumers to love your brand
and then make them buy the products. But in the future, the approach will be
much more personalized with the help of “Big Data”. Companies would rather
virtually go to consumers to sell their products using data analytics tool like

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predictive modeling. The problem today with hypermarkets, supermarkets or
any retailer is that they collect data about consumers at multiple touch-points
but cannot leverage that into predicting their purchasing behavior. In
comparison to the offline retailers, online retailers like Amazon.com set
benchmark in predictive modeling.
Amazon.com gives recommendations such as ‘Inspired by Your Wish List, “You
recently viewed Items and Featured Recommendations’, “People Who Bought
This Item Also Bought ” and a lot more. Most often than not, Amazon knows
what you want to buy before you search for the product or sometimes even
before you know it.
In the years to come top retailers will use predictive ‘Big Data’ to leverage their
sales and profitability. My recommendation for the same would be that before
collecting data of consumers, brands should have clear objectives of “Why are
you collecting each specific data?” and also have concrete processes on “How
will the company use that data to fulfill their objectives?”. This would serve as a
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to evaluate success matrix.

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2) Omnichannel Customer Experience - The successful 2020 retailer will build a
true omnichannel operation that allows consumers to interact through any
channel of their preference on a 24/7 basis, anywhere and anytime. However, it
is sad that none of the retailers in India (my country) are following omnichannel
approach. Yet, this can be an opportunity for any existing/new retail brand to
market itself in the ‘Blue Ocean’. For example, Sweden-based Company, IKEA,
unveiled the new app in conjunction with the release of it 2015 catalog, which
focused on bathroom and bedroom furnishings and is themed, “Where the
Everyday Begins and Ends”. The app allowed users to designate items as
favorites with a ‘star’ and then add those items to shopping list. This was
synced to the data-warehouse of all channels through which the customer
interacts with the company. The shopping list was linked to individual store
locations to check-in store levels and promotions. The customer could order it
online or visit the nearest store where the salesperson knows exactly what the
customer wants through the ‘data-centric’ approach of the customer research
out of the store. The app upgraded the promotions on loyalty programs to build
an IKEA Family.

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The IKEA Family app users had access to extended sharable content by
scanning designated pages of the printed catalogue. The extended content
includes an augmented
reality “Place in Your Room”
feature that allows users to
virtually place and view
products in their own
homes. There is a lot more
to it; features such as ‘Do-It-
Yourself’ tips, stories behind
IKEA products, 360-degree
views to look around the
whole room and a lot more.
The best part is that
everything is very simple to use and easy to understand. IKEA has created
benchmark of Omnichannel Customer Experience in its industry.
Today consumers cannot imagine a brand or a
retailer without a website and social-media
pages. Tomorrow (i.e. in years to come)
consumers will definitely want brands to have a

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responsive mobile application and in-store digital devices to improve their
overall shopping experience. In 2020, there will be Physical Stores, Online
Web-Store, Ecommerce, Mobile-Commerce, Catalogue (not to forget E-
Catalogue) and Social Media. The importance of each of these channels of
sales cannot be underestimated. The ‘King’ of retail would be none other that
the brand which understands the right balance between the 6 channels to build
customer experience and increase sales.
3) Supply Chain - When we talk about seamless omnichannel experience for
customers, we have to consider the ‘Big-Daddy’ – Supply Chain. Most retailers
neglect the importance of supply chain. And those who give high importance to
supply chain management succeed. The benchmark for success in supply chain
management is – ZARA. At Zara, speed and responsiveness are more
important than cost. The company precedes about 450 million items a year for
its 1770 stores in 86 countries. Incredible! To achieve this, Zara controls more
of its manufacturing and supply chain than do most retailers.
The omnichannel supply chain at Zara creates synergy between business and
operation strategy. Zara adapts couture designs, manufactures, distributes, and
retails clothes within 2 weeks of the original design first appearing on catwalks.

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It literally symbolizes the idea of “Fast Fashion”. Inventory optimization models
are put in place to help the company to determine the quantity that should be
delivered to every single one of its retail stores via shipments that go out twice
every week. Zara ensures that its customers are aware of the new collections
and designs within 24 hours of its shipment to the stores. It creates a demand
for a product much before the product reaches the store, so that potential
customers start thinking about the products. No sooner that the product reaches
the store, than those potential customers are clinged to make their final decision
– Purchase.
4) Click and Collect - One-Stop shopping in 2020 will be more about one retail
brand offering a number of options for order and fulfillment: home-delivery, store
pick-up, “Gubur Taxi-Delivery”, or in-store payment (example: ‘Click-and-
Collect” concept where shoppers buy online and pick up their purchases in the
store). This opens up the potential of virtual inventory management for the best
possible location-which is often the distribution center or vendor depot. Click-
and-Collect gives an opportunity for retailers and brands for “Cross Selling”
when customers come to the store to pick-up their products. Cross Selling is a
marketing expression for the action of recommending related products or
services to a customer who is considering buying something. For example,

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when a customer buys a phone a retailer can cross-sell phone insurance,
phone covers, accessories, and value-added services.
Home Plus (Tesco subsidiary in Korea) sets a benchmark in this category.
Whenever their customers come to collect preordered products from the store,
Home Plus cross-sells complementary products at a lucrative deal to its
customers. They help the customers navigate to the best offers using the
“iBeacons technology”. This simple idea leveraged with the help of technology
increases the average-basket size of the customers, footfalls, sales and
profitability.

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5) Advanced Payment - A seamless shopping
experience requires easy and speedy payments.
Consumers hate waiting in long queues just to
checkout for payments. The checkout process is
changing with the evolution of payments and the

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rise of the alternatives. Retailers in 2020 would focus on best practices to
reduce the problems associates with purchase. Mobile technology helps to
complete purchases and this technology will expand the use of self-check-out
tools like scan-and-go, QR code payment, or an advanced technology like
Square.
Advanced payment systems allows
consumers to spend more time on shopping
rather that on waiting in long lanes, specially
in supermarkets and during ‘Festive Sale
Season’. Thus, prompt payments would
increase average-basket-size of each
consumer, decrease inventory for retailers
and increase profitability for brands.
The Benchmark in this category is Apple
Pay, Starbucks On-the-Go payment, Tesco QR Code scan payment, and the
Disneyland MagicBands.
6) Employee Training - Employee training is another significant aspect in retail
industry. Well-trained staffs deliver better results for retailers and build effective
customer experience. The owners/promoters of the brand are not the ones who
reach out to the final consumers; it’s the salesperson who interacts with the
customer during the purchase process. More often that not, well-designed
employee training is overlooked by most retailers. Hence, brands fail to meet
their objectives. Your staff should be better trained than your competition,
armed with product knowledge, skills to sell effectively, understanding of in-
store procedures and strategies to solve customer problems. Implementing
these 4 Human Resource strategies will be a must in 2020 retail. There are
ample examples on the Internet on how retailers and brands increased sales
tremendously by training their employees.

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Starbucks sets an impressive example of training module. It is compulsory for
employees to attend certain number of hours of training. Employees receive
certificates and badges for successful completion of training. The employee
involvement is high as the sessions are designed to be interactive and
feedback-oriented. Overall, these costs of employee training help the retailers
indirectly, yet significantly.

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To sum up, I’ve outlined the ‘Future of Retail’ is creating seamless Omnichannel
Customer Experience with the use of the advancing technologies. Success in
2020 retail will be shaped by several factors, weaved together in the flexible,
scalable, and agile model. Each of the factors above in the report has been
explained with concrete examples of benchmark practices followed by some
successful retail brands. Today retail in most sectors is highly fragmented
(especially in developing countries). Conversely, there is the “Blue Ocean” of
opportunities to be the leader-brand and increase long-term profitability. Using
Big-Data for predictive analytics, leveraging technology to create Omnichannel
customer experience, implementing effective Supply-Chain, using prompt
methods payments, enforcing efficient employee training and other success
factors mentioned in the article, will definitely shape the future of a successful
retailers to manage the complexity and diversity of retailing in 2020.
About the Author
Saket Toshniwal is a freelance writer, entrepreneur and an expert in
Ecommerce. Currently, Saket is pursuing his Masters in Digital Marketing and

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Customer Relationship Management at the IESEG School of Management,
France.
References:
https://www.tradegecko.com/blog/zara-supply-chain-its-secret-to-retail-success
http://digital.pwc.com/if-stores-had-a-voice/
http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/ikea-boosts-content-functionality-for-
catalog-app