Looking ahead to the Retail Technology Show
Boosting technology usage and nurturing demand for sustainable purchasing decisions among younger consumers are key themes currently resonating across the retail landscape.
These critical aspects underpinned the panel discussion held on the Press Day hosted by the Retail Technology Show, which runs April 2nd and 3rd. Stuart Trevor, founder of Stuart Trevor, set the tone for the event stating: “My children won’t buy fast fashion and mix with people who do. My mission is to encourage brands to do better. Gen Alpha and Gen Z will not allow the planet to be destroyed by consumption.”
Value of authenticity
One of the things that particularly hits home with younger consumers is authenticity and Trevor highlighted how he had used his own name for his brand and that Nike has gained from associations with names and people such as Michael Jordan.
Never Miss a Retail Update!George Sullivan, founder & CEO of The Sole Supplier, recognises this and suggests that a differentiator of brands is whether they have a heart. “Temu and Shein have no heart. Brands we talk about on our marketplace have heart and manufacture correctly. They have a story behind them. These are brands that relate to young people. If you have any sort of conscience then you know if something is not produced correctly. Rubbish products that are cheap do not drive repeat purchases…People are realising that more expensive products last longer.”
He acknowledges the challenge of people understanding where value lies while also recognising the opportunity: “We can capture the hearts of the younger demographics through content. Authentic content from real people in real brands is the future. We can forget about Temu and Shein very quickly.”
Simone Oloman, co-founder of Need It For Tonight (NIFT), does not believe these two organisations are going to fade away any time soon but she does suggest there is a shift taking place from price to value and that this is very much driven by youngsters. The premise of NIFT is to encourage people to shop locally with smaller brands that use the company’s delivery platform as an extension of their high street bricks and mortar.
Tapping into convenience
As well as sustainability she suggests the convenience factor – inherent in delivery – is very high up the agendas of younger consumers. “Gen Alphas care about sustainability so it’s about marrying it with convenience.” To boost the convenience factor of the NIFT service the company will be testing a ‘try and wait’ service whereby the courier waits while the products are tried on by the customer. The objective is for this new service to reduce the costly and inconvenient issue of returns.
Olomon also suggests social commerce will be huge along with live shopping where both use the powers of AI to boost the experience for shoppers. Amid the panel’s talk about the desires of younger consumers and the issues of sustainability there was a unanimous view that technology will play an increasing role – notably AI – in the retail sector.
Mohsen Ghasepour, group AI director at Kingfisher, says agentic AI will “revolutionise e-commerce” and impact massively other aspect of the retail sector. He highlights how Kingfisher is using AI across its business and various brands including it helping power automation. “It’s not a choice to automate but a must. With 1.1 million products for sale on our marketplace we can’t just throw people at it [to manage these volumes of product]. We use AI to improve the efficiency. It’s about empowering colleagues to do their jobs more efficiently.”
Sullivan also detailed how his business is using AI tools such as Co-pilot for software development but the technology still needs to be overseen by a senior developer so this is very much about marrying up the technology with the team.
