Sustainability
Sustainability is here to stay. It’s been steadily growing in focus since the pandemic, and things have intensified significantly since then.
Waves of EU regulations have now come into place, and are continuing to evolve at a rapid pace. Staying ahead of your responsibilities as a retailer isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have for 2024.
And this isn’t just because the law demands it, but your customers demand it too. Customer expectations around sustainability and the environment have exploded in recent years.
Deloitte’s 2023 Sustainable Consumer Survey highlights that producing sustainable products and packaging is the green practice that consumers value the most, with one in four being prepared to pay more for sustainability.
We’ve written at length about some of the ways you can address sustainability within your packaging and your supply chain so that you can make gains that translate into powerful messages for your customers. Speak to us about how you can start implementing these changes.
Sustainability doesn’t just benefit your market share, but it’s also playing a pivotal role in how you attract staff and retain them. Growing numbers of jobseekers are considering the sustainability efforts of potential employers before accepting job roles, while employees are also more likely to leave their roles in favour of more sustainable companies.
For retail success in 2024, sustainability needs to be a high on your priority list.
Seamless Customer Experiences
The retail store has seen a renaissance in 2023. Much to people’s surprise, in-store has boomed again thanks to the re-imagining of the in-store experience.
These in-store experiences have been driven by an essential component; personalisation.
Personalisation is enabling retailers to offer experiences that are unrivalled in the digital world. We wrote about how British-based health and wellbeing retailer, Boots, has begun to offer an in-store skin-scanning service, designed to analyse the skin and recommend products based on the results.
Hyper-personalisation offers customer experiences that are seamless and sophisticated. But it’s vital that these experiences are connected across in-store, online, offline and anywhere else that your brand might be experienced by the customer.
Omnichannel is still at the heart of seamless customer experience, blending how your customer sees and feels your brand. In 2024, it’s worth re-visiting all the ways you offer your customers a personal experience and how you can leverage omnichannel to exceed expectations. Exploring loyalty programmes, store formats and how your customers like to buy (looking at their journey) will be vital to helping you create those seamless customer experiences.
Be Human
AI and automation have been huge topics in 2023 and there are few industries that haven’t been touched by it.
And retail is set to be one of the biggest industries to benefit from AI, with predictions that it will improve efficiency by around 59% by 2035.
It’s important to remember that automation and AI should only be used where it adds true value for your customer and doesn’t detract from their experience of your brand. Don’t prioritise efficiency over the personal touch.
We recently wrote about how customers are calling out for empathetic and human interactions with brands. Using AI to predict stock levels, aiding buyers and budget managers, can help significantly with profit and loss management. Automating stock management across your supply chain (seeing where it is in transit, delivery due dates, in-store stock levels as well as in the warehouse) can also transform how your in-store and online support staff interact with customers to give them up-to-date, accurate information.
Using AI and automation wisely is key to enhancing your customer experience, but too much can lead to frustration and losing valuable business. Even with all the benefits that tech brings to the party, remember you are dealing with a human being at the end of it all. By imagining all of your processes as face-to-face interactions, you’ll ensure that you don’t lose the personal touch.
Diversify
Nothing about 2023 stood still. Diversifying could, and probably should, have been the buzzword for 2023.
We’ve detailed how we’ve spent the last few years continuing to diversify, and localise, our supply chain. This is to help ensure we’re procuring ethically but also to maintain our supply chain during times of turmoil.
It’s important to diversify your supply chain to support your business and environmental goals – emissions from your supply chain are typically 10 times higher than your in-house or manufacturing emissions.
Looking at your products is also important for 2024. We’ve seen many retailers beginning to offer cheaper product ranges, to appeal to people impacted by the cost-of-living crisis, and looking at how existing products can be made more sustainable to appeal to a growing cohort of conscientious customers.
Finally, diversifying isn’t simply about changing your manual processes or products. Diversity takes place behind the scenes with commitments to your workforce and customers.
Diversity and inclusion is good for business, yes. But more importantly, it’s good for the people who benefit from great policies and open doors.
Research shows that retail stores do well when customers see people like them, reflected in the staff working on the shop floor. Customers are more likely to buy when they feel aligned to the brand they’re buying from.
Diversifying is a retail imperative for 2024. So don’t let it slip down your agenda.
If you’re ready to bring positive change in 2024, then speak to our team on +31 (0) 88 494 20 80 or email us at online@worldpack.eu
