Industry Talk

Regular Industry Development Updates, Opinions and Talking Points relating to Manufacturing, the Supply Chain and Logistics.

Worst year for retail sales, but how can tech help?

Following the news that retailers suffered their worst annual sales performance on record in 2020 according to British Retail Consortium (BRC), the industry will be looking towards safeguarding stores to bounce back from this result.

2020 marked the year the retail industry spent in lockdown.  UK retailers have fallen victim to this tumultuous period, with the effects of the pandemic having a detrimental impact on their sales. As the industry is plunged into yet another lockdown – it’s vital that retailers grow from the experience of the past year and make sure they are well prepared for when stores eventually re-open.

The current focus for many retailers, of course, is improving the online experience and driving eCommcerce. However, now is the time to be making plans for in-store, so that retail bosses can be certain that shoppers will get the very best, and safest, experience when they can return.

Clean and contactless will, therefore, remain the focus post-lockdown, as people are more conscious of their safety. Customers will be using their own smartphones to select, learn about and buy products by scanning barcodes themselves. And employees will use smartphone scanning to do regular tasks like order picking to fulfil online orders and quick retrieval of Click-and-Collect orders.

Only by instilling confidence in the in-store shopping experience, can they hope to see sales start to pick back-up.