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Resilient Retail Playbook

This flagship PSFK guide is a trends-led playbook for retail resilience.

(Discover the 2023 version of the Future of Retail report with its focus on shopper marketing activation here)

Executive Summary

Without a doubt, 2020 was a year of unprecedented retail reckoning. While many businesses were forced to temporarily or permanently close shop, there were some who found opportunities within the challenges of the year’s circumstances. The most successful retailers and brands of 2020 were those who invested well ahead to build resilience, focusing on securing the infrastructure, supply chains and culture to pivot at a moment’s notice and respond to changes affecting consumers and the market.

Report Overview

This Future of Retail 2021 trends report is designed not only to help brands and retailers respond to the events of 2020, but also to build their business for 2021 and beyond. In this report, you’ll be asked to honestly assess where you are as a company today and identify where your next key investments should be (for more details, check out our Retail Resilience Rubric at the back of this report). If you commit to organizational introspection and infrastructure redevelopment now, your company will be better equipped to weather, meet customer expectations and thrive within the unknown and unexpected.

Original Insights & Statistics In This Report

  • Only 23% of consumers will shift their spending back from online retailers to brick and mortar retail stores after the coronavirus pandemic
  • As many American consumers are willing to share personal information with retailers and brands as those who won’t (47%)
  • Consumers are signaling their in-store intentions through online research before their visit traditional retailers: 45% researched online regarding physical store inventory/availability and 33% researched online regarding safety protocols/measures

This is the 2021 version of the report. The 2022 version of the PSFK Future of Retail 2022 can be found here.

Key Topics

Anticipatory Support

Retailers are applying machine learning and data aggregation tools to anticipate consumer behaviors and needs based on situational or emotional contexts and provide service or product recommendations. This includes using data generated by mobile apps to create a unified view of a member's shopping behavior and preferences, as well as leveraging RFID and other technologies to detect items that shoppers are interacting with in order to target shoppers in the moment and drive incremental retail...

Expert Consults

Positioning in-store associates as product experts capable of providing customers with personally informed one-to-one consultations, hyper-relevant solutions or suggestions, and empowering them to play a significant role in customer acquisition and retention as more customers enter an experience with elevated expectations around tailored engagement based on current needs and expertise based on demonstrated knowledge.

Informed Associates

Despite collecting a variety of insights on individual shoppers from their online shopping browsing behaviors, social commerce usage, purchase history, loyalty membership and location, most companies fail to develop this information into an actionable customer view. New platforms are bringing these details to the forefront of retail interactions, enabling associates to recognize their customers and deliver personalized service. This encompasses the adoption of machine-learning and AI-enabled systems to interpret data and power tailored 1:1 interactions,...

Featured Examples

Salesforce helps Saks Fifth Avenue level up its e-commerce personalization game

Through its partnership with cloud-based software provider Salesforce, luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue is offering a more personalized shopping experience to its e-commerce shoppers. After re-platforming saks.com with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, the retailer now has greater access to a range of customer data points, including returns they've made or items that have been added to their carts or wishlists. This level of intel is providing Saks a more complete view of its shoppers' behaviors, both in-store and online, which in turn is facilitating more tailored recommendations and messages they share with each of their shoppers.

Microsoft Powershelf ecosystem links shelves, stockrooms, checkout and distribution

To create a complete ecosystem that connects shelves to stockrooms, checkout and distribution in real-time, retail technology solutions provider Powershelf partnered with Microsoft, in turn creating a platform that provides second-by-second sales, stock, and logistics that can all be seen, analyzed, and controlled from anywhere in the organization. Each in-store Powershelf product continually communicates critical data through the Microsoft Azure cloud. Microsoft Power Platform then helps Powershelf compile the data, analyze it, and communicate it back to consumer products companies in real time. By providing decision makers with real-time visibility of when and where stock is low, enterprises are able to efficiently anticipate restocking needs at scale, communicate with stockrooms and distributors in a timely manner, and ensure customer happiness.

New Balance shares user data across channels for seamless customer experience

To improve its overall customer experience, footwear manufacturer New Balance partnered with retail industry tech provider Aptos to deploy a new cloud data management system across its North American and European retail brick-and-mortar stores and offices.

Resilient Retail Playbook

(Note: The PSFK Future of Retail 2022 can be found here)

This 75-page deep-dive research report includes:

  • A three-stage framework comprising key innovation trends to leverage
  • Best-in-class exemplary case studies
  • Consumer insights, industry stats and expert quotes
  • Self-assessment tools to calculate your retail resiliency and define your next steps
  • Results from original PSFK consumer survey
  • A list of vendors to call upon to activate your strategy of Retail Resilience

Published on: Dec 2, 2020

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