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Companies belonging to the retailing sector will be affected directly and indirectly by a number of disruptive opportunities and challenges that will jeopardize their corporate longevity over the coming decades. While described in detail within Quantumrun’s special reports, these disruptive trends can be summarized along the following broad points:
- First off, omnichannel is inevitable. Brick and mortar will merge completely by the mid-2020s to a point where a retailer’s physical and digital properties will complement each other’s sales.
- Pure e-commerce is dying. Starting with the clicks-to-bricks trend that emerged in the early 2010s, pure e-commerce retailers will find that they need to invest in physical locations to grow their revenue and market share within their respective niches.
- Physical retail is the future of branding. Future shoppers are looking to shop at physical retail stores that offer memorable, shareable, and easy to use (tech-enabled) shopping experiences.
- The marginal cost of producing physical goods will reach near zero by the late-2030s due to significant oncoming advancements in energy production, logistics, and automation. As a result, retailers will no longer be able to effectively outcompete each other on price alone. They will have to re-focus on brand—to sell ideas, more so than just products. This is because in this brave new world where anyone can practically buy anything, it’s no longer ownership that will separate the rich from the poor, it’s access. Access to exclusive brands and experiences. Access will become the new wealth of the future by the late 2030s.
- By the late 2030s, once physical goods become plentiful and cheap enough, they will be viewed more as a service than a luxury. And like music and film/television, all retail will become subscription based businesses.
- RFID tags, a technology used to track physical goods remotely (and a technology that retailers have used since the 80s), will finally lose their cost and technology limitations. As a result, retailers will begin placing RFID tags on every individual item they have in stock, regardless of price. This is crucial because RFID tech, when coupled with the Internet of Things (IoT), is an enabling technology, enabling the enhanced inventory awareness that will result in a range of new retail technologies.
These broad trends will have far-reaching effects on the retailing sector that will influence the sector’s long-term development.
To stay informed about these and other trends, as well as the emerging opportunities and threats facing the retailing sector, consider investing in Quantumrun Foresight sector forecast reports. Contact us today to learn more.
