The past 12-months have been transformative and challenging for the retail sector, with retailers experimenting with new technologies and strategies whilst grappling with new ESG requirements, an increasing array of payment options, and ongoing supply chain issues.

In 2024, brands explored the use of augmented reality, tried to entice customers back into physical retail with pop up shops, and boosted customer engagement with loyalty offers and personalisation. Meanwhile, other retailers such as Carpetright called in administrators following a shift in consumer sentiment and an increasingly challenging environment.

To mark the end of the year, the editorial team at Retail Systems has rounded up a host of industry experts to tell us their top retail predictions for the year ahead.


1 Maximising the shopping experience

While shoppers and retailers alike adopted online shopping during the pandemic, they are now looking for something that goes beyond the purchasing of goods and services.

Luke Sparke-Rogstad, retail expert at business management consultancy OC&C believes retailers should inject fun into their purchasing journey to keep consumers engaged and compete with service platform providers, such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

“Generation Z is leading this shift, being twice as likely as baby boomers to name ‘fun to shop’ as a reason to frequent a retailer,” he says. “The retail experience has lost its ‘fun’ element, making retailers increasingly vulnerable to competition from leisure activities when it comes to discretionary spending.”
Sparke-Rogstad continues: “New retail disruptors like Temu and Shein are using ‘fun’ to innovate their customer’s journey and should provide both offline and online retailers with inspiration and urgency to reinvigorate the retail experience they provide."

Speaking on the future of the health, wellness and beauty industry Simon Comins, chief commercial officer of Superdrug, says that customers want a more personal and interactive shopping experience.

“In-store beauty events are the word on the street as shoppers look to gain more from their shopping experience over scrolling through products on their phone,” he says. “With over 500 Beauty Studios offering treatments within Superdrug stores across the country, Superdrug’s annual Superdrug Presents customer event taking place again in 2025 and the introduction of the Superdrug Health and Beauty Playgrounds in stores nationwide, the High Street retailer is on hand to invigorate any shopping trip with new experiential offerings.”


2 The reinvention of physical retail spaces

Footfall in retail spaces increased in 2024 and retailers have turned to increasingly innovative ways to ensure that customers return to brick-and-mortar stores. This year saw furniture retailer Ikea launch its first standalone restaurant while Virgin Media O2 opened the largest telecommunications retail store in the UK.


Sam Richardson, CX consultant at cloud communications company Twilio says that brands are creating spaces of beauty, discovery, and wonder, offering playful, human, and tactile experiences that resonate with their audience.

“After the supposed ‘death of the high street’, we are witnessing a reinvention of physical retail spaces - just look at the return of HMV’s flagship store on Oxford Circus, a perfect example of the high street’s revival,” he adds. “Take Sephora, for example, with its ‘Ready for more black and white stripes?’ takeover of Newcastle - it was playful, engaging, and perfectly targeted.

“We’ll see more of this in the year ahead, as more brands better understand consumers’ needs across both physical and digital touchpoints. It’s all about establishing the balance and putting a smile back on our faces across all brand-customer interactions.”


3 Combining new technology

Nikki Baird VP of strategy & product at Aptos, a global retail technology company, believes that retail can be slower to adopt new technologies than other industries, as with stores in multiple locations retailers wait until they have confidence in a new product before rolling it out more widely.

One area where Baird believes retailers can be more aggressive is by combining existing technologies.

“Retail has had robotics and AI both for a while now, for example, but they’re starting to use AI to speed the training of robots so that they can deploy them more heavily in warehouses, stores, and for delivery,” explains Baird. “Smart carts and self-scanning devices have been around for at least 20 years, but they have never taken off due to the friction of how to monitor everything that goes into the cart, bag it or not, then still have to go pay at the end has prevented a high level of adoption.”

She continues: “But both Amazon and Instacart have added smart cameras, so that you don’t have to scan everything going into the cart, it just recognises what you have in there, and the integration with POS at the end makes payment easier. That has removed a lot of the friction and has seen probably the greatest increase in adoption in 2024 since smart carts were first introduced, and that probably has not yet reached an inflection point of adoption.”


4 Personalisation gets personal

Retailers have been increasingly dividing customers into ever smaller segments and this personalised targeting trend is set to continue next year.

Research from e-commerce platform Visualsoft suggests that personalised shopping experiences can increase customer satisfaction rates by up to 80 per cent, with over 70 per cent of consumers saying they are more likely to return to a brand that sends personalised messages or offers.

Jen Pollard, data analyst at Visualsoft predicts that retailers will turn to AI to improve personalisation.

“AI has firmly established itself as a cornerstone of e-commerce success and businesses must now focus on harnessing AI to analyse consumer behaviour and deliver tailored recommendations,” she says. “Personalised experiences not only enhance customer satisfaction but also drive repeat purchases.

“AI-powered chatbots can provide instant, human-like assistance, answering queries and streamlining order processes, freeing up human agents for more complex tasks.”

Peter Ahye, chief executive officer of Hexagon Consultants, explains that brands are putting data and technology to good use.

“With the ability to capture a wide breadth of customer data based on their browsing and purchasing habits, retailers are being hyper targeted when it comes to formulating user experiences,” he says. “Technology has moved on and will continue to move on when it comes to the personalisation of user experiences allowing retailers to achieve the highest conversion rates when their customers are fed a more tailored experience.

"Perhaps more importantly, responding effectively to customer behaviours leads to increased brand loyalty and satisfaction thanks to a more targeted, relevant experience. This can lead to bigger basket sizes and, ultimately, larger-value purchases. One thing’s for sure, personalisation is here to stay and is only going to get better!"


5 Increasing delivery options

As online shopping rose in popularity, retailers found that delivery of goods to their customers could affect their reputation as well as their bottom lines.
Gary Winter, VP of global strategic initiatives at Parcel Pending by Quadient, believes that low cost imported goods from platforms including Shein and TikTok and the resale of second-hand items will push up the demand for alternatives to home delivery.

“As demand for affordable goods grows, out-of-home (OOH) delivery options like parcel lockers or pick-up points will become essential parts of the delivery ecosystems,” he says. “These OOH options will offer buyers and sellers convenient alternatives to avoid porch pirates, missed deliveries, and inconvenient post office queues.

“This shift will likely push carriers to expand locker networks, potentially leading to the appointment of dedicated roles such as 'Out-of-Home Directors' to oversee these efforts. These changes will enable carriers to stay agile in a rapidly evolving retail environment while keeping delivery costs in check.”


6 Slow retailing

Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about their heath, which Nikki Baird at Aptos says is being defined more broadly than ever. For example, health also now include factors such as screen time and avoiding distractions such as social media feeds.

And many people are rejecting “standard life markers” such as going to university, getting married or applying for a mortgage.

Baird says that these things make it difficult for retailers to track and collect data about consumers and use it to figure out how to best market to them.

“With the extra scrutiny of TikTok, the EU’s rising interest in social media’s influence and the rise of negative consequences from things like AI companions, I can see a lot of consumers rejecting tech’s influence over their lives almost as their way of justifying things like big jumps in age-gates (like Australia recently implemented) or outright bans (like the US is working on against TikTok),” she adds. “Related to this, with the rise of social commerce, consumers are getting less interested in speed of delivery and more interested in finding the ‘right’ thing, no matter how long it takes and are turning to slow retailing or mindful shopping.”

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