Tony D'Onofrio
Retail
In 2019, China was projected to surpass the United States to become the world's largest retail market. On November 11, 2019, Alibaba celebrated a record $38 billion in online retail sales during the Singles' Day 24-hour shopping holiday.
Because of the USA trade wars and subsequently COVID-19, the euphoric rise of China in being THE number one country in retail has been delayed. Notwithstanding this ascension, China continues to be the digital laboratory for the future of retail.
In this article, we explore a few of the China emerging technologies deployed during the lockdown which have a direct impact on retail. Next, we look at the digital innovation steps leading to the reopening of a "new normal" retail industry.
There's an App for That Pandemic Track
Very impressive is a recent presentation from Andreessen Horowitz on the number of apps deployed in China to fight COVID-19. Linked to the Alipay (Alibaba) mobile payment system, one of the examples apps provides a color QR code on your health.
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The Latest Post Pandemic Retail Sales Forecasts
"At a time when people were confined to their homes, we moved swiftly to leverage our digital app ecosystem and Nike expert trainer network to inspire and support consumers across China to stay active and connected while at home. As a result, our Nike Training Club (NTC) workouts in China saw an extraordinary rise in signup and engagement. In fact, our weekly active users for all of our Nike activity apps were up 80% by the end of Q3 versus the beginning of the quarter.
And here's what happened - the strong engagement of Chinese consumers with our activity apps translated into strong engagement with our Nike commerce app. As a result, our digital business in China grew more than 30% and maintained strong momentum throughout this challenging period, a powerful statement of Nike’s agile problem-solving in times of disruption." - Nike CEO
During China's peak of the COVID-19 outbreak earlier this year, nearly 760 million people were in some form of home lockdown. Above Nike response is an example of the positive actions taken by retailers during the health crisis.
This article summarizes the COVID-19 China's "new retail" strategies, generational commerce transformation trends, and the latest global / regional retail sales forecasts post the pandemic.
China COVID-19 Lessons Accelerating the Future of Retail
Conceived by Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, "New Retail is a critical chapter in the comeback story of physical retail, and the digitization of all retail." As China has now transitioned through most of the COVID-19 crisis, here are a few lessons from new retail:
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At the recent annual conference of the International Supply Chain Protection Organization (ISCPO), it was a great pleasure to deliver the latest edition of my continuously updated 'Disruptive Future of Retail' presentation. As it is top of mind for everyone, my opening remarks focused on supply chains and the growing global concerns with the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Timely to the conference was my last article, 'The Coronavirus and Its Predictable Future of Retail'. As I expressed to the audience, the end of the health crisis is uncertain but multiple historical lessons point to eventual retail recovery and stabilization.
"By stimulating (more aggressive China) demand for online shopping, the outbreak has highlighted the broader need for traditional retailers to keep moving away from a reliance on brick-and-mortar stores to an omnichannel model." As my futuristic presentation explores, China on multiple levels was already leading retail disruption. COVID-19 will accelerate digital transformation trends to the rest of the world.
This article summarizes just a few of the NEW charts from the 2020 edition of the Disruptive Future of Retail.
The $30 Trillion Retail Opportunity
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This week, I was invited by Rethink Retail to speak about the actions retailers should be taking in response to the growing global concerns with the coronavirus. In this article, I will summarize some of the information shared in the podcast plus additional post analysis insights with focus on major economies and retail.
The new coronavirus, officially renamed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO), is thought to have jumped to a human from a yet-to-be-identified animal host. "Based on current estimates, scientists say the new virus has a reproductive value of between 2.24 to 3.58, meaning an infected person could pass on the pathogen to between two and four people. In order to contain the outbreak, that value has to be reduced to below 1."
The Global Impact of Coronavirus
A new study indicated that the coronavirus could impact over 5 million businesses worldwide. Dun & Bradstreet research found that "51,000 companies worldwide, 163 of which are in the Fortune 1000, have one or more direct or 'Tier 1' suppliers in the (primary China) impacted region."
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This is the second article covering the innovation leadership activities around NRF 2020. My previous post summarized the three most impactful perfect vision takeaways of NRF 2020.
Just prior to the New York NRF Big Show, a favorite activity every year is to attend the information-packed RetailROI SuperSaturday. This industry leading event brings together "retail’s most prominent thinkers for revealing discussions on Digital Transformation, Unified Commerce, Marketplaces and best practices for being a Retail leader in today’s fast-paced world—all for a greater cause".
From this year's 11th SuperSaturday edition, here is a summary of the altruistic work of RetailROI and the latest research on the strategic 2020 retail digital transformation technologies.
A True RetailROI Human Difference
The purpose of the RetailROI is to raise awareness and provide real solutions for the more than 400 million children vulnerable worldwide. In just ten years, RetailROI has made substantial progress in making an appreciable human difference to the world by helping over 250,000 children in 25 countries.
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40,000 Attendees / 800 Exhibitors / 99 Countries / 60,000 Personal Walking Steps
This is the first of multiple articles covering the Retail Big Show NRF 2020. As others have summarized the insights of the sessions and speakers, my primary focus in this post will be the futurist innovation trends from the trade show floor. The next article will cover the key takeaways from RetailROI SuperSaturday, the place to be for inspiring and exclusive industry intelligence just prior to the start of NRF.
Thematically, artificial intelligence (AI) was the passport to innovation entry to NRF 2020. Winning demonstrations were focused on identifying and delivering competitive advantages in the deployment of differentiated immersive consumer experiences across channels.
Surprised this year in being able to identify 36 distinctive technology innovation trends on the trade show floor. After a very busy NRF 2020, here my three summarized most impactful perfect vision takeaways of NRF 2020.
Computer Vision Discerns the Center of the Retail Store
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Retail Future Can You Hear Me Now
Welcome to the continued age of digital transformation. The contenders for being the number one innovation disruptor of the last decade includes the explosion of e-commerce, the growth of cloud services, 3.5 billion people using social media, the mobile internet with 61% of the global population connected, over 9 billion Internet-of-Things (IoT) connected devices, ever efficient lithium ion batteries. the expansion of biometrics such as facial recognition, billions of RFID labels in use especially in retail apparel, and voice platforms such as Alexa coming into our homes.
The number one disruptive technology of the last decade was the smartphone. Technically, Apple kicked-off the successful launch of this solution in the prior decade (2007), but few could have foreseen the consequential impact in the 2010s.
Augmenting the recent "Perfect 2020 Mobile Vision Future of Retail" post, this article summarizes the chain-reaction smartphone elements underway in the new retail decade. As a recent 'Retail 2030' report pointed out, in the 2020s we are in unchartered territory.
"As consumers delegate tedious and transactional shopping to bots and virtual assistants, choice will be firmly in the domain of the algorithm, with minimal consumer intervention. When bots do the buying, the connection between retailers and their consumers, and the ability to influence them, will be broken. Appealing to a bot will be unchartered territory involving new skills, techniques and platforms."
Smartphones Already Represent 34% of All USA Ecommerce Sales
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My last article summarized the positive (green shopper) digital consumer transformation trends from the latest edition of the "Disruptive Future of Retail" presentation. As the audience from the recent keynote was primarily from loss prevention, in appreciation of their positive response and engagement, this post expands on the retail shrinkage industry data, including multiple new charts not presented due to time constraints.
The continued renaissance of the global retail industry will require increased innovation to protect employees, customers, and products. Traditional security solutions that typically increase friction to deter theft are counter to the new digitally empowered consumer that progressively wants to just scan and go.
The $51 Billion USA Retail Challenge
The latest NRF national shrink survey, "tells a story of a dramatically changing retail risk landscape, with new threats and challenges being met at each turn with new loss prevention tools. Progress is being made, but LP teams continue to face setbacks and challenges with new and expanding areas of threat."
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In October I had the opportunity to speak to roughly 150 retail professionals on the "Disruptive Future of Retail". This continuously updated presentation explains the key trends driving the digital transformation of the global retail industry.
Very humbled by the positive response to the new edition with the audience stating it that it was "inspiring" and "eye-opening". This article summarizes selected technology trends charts on delivering exceptional differentiated consumer experiences which are the future of retail.
The Digital Wake-Up Call
Contrary to all the retail apocalypse popular media hype, the retail industry is in the middle of a digital renaissance wakeup call. Below data is from one of my favorite annual studies from RIS News / IHL Group on the state of consumer facing technologies. .
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Recently I had the pleasure of speaking at the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) Impact 2019 conference. Over 430 people made their way to the University of Florida’s Gainesville campus for the three-day event. The symposium "focused heavily on learning and collaboration, as well as an overview of the LPRC’s research on evidence-based tactics and strategies to reduce crime and loss in the retail space".
As part of a senior retail executive session, I contributed this excerpt of my continuously updated "Disruptive Future of Retail" presentation. What is the state of the global retail industry? Is USA retail a dying industry? What's in the mind of the new omnichannel shopper and how is it changing? What's the impact on the loss prevention function? What's driving disruption? Why is LPRC positioned to lead at the speed of NEW retail?
The Groovy Retail Industry
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It is a Small World
Continuing our journey to learning something new, we go to my native land of Italy and the city of Rome. According to Roman legend, the city of Rome was named after its founder, Romulus, the first king of Rome.
Modern Rome has 280 fountains and more than 900 churches. Nearly $1 million worth of coins are tossed into Rome’s Trevi Fountain. The proceeds are donated to the charity Caritas to help those in need.
The first ever shopping mall was built in Rome between 107 and 110 AD by Emperor Trajan. It sold a wide variety of goods and grocery items. Rome’s first university, La Sapienza, established in 1303 AD, is the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world.
The Romans gave us our calendar. In 46 BC when Julius Caesar was in Alexandria, he marveled at their calendar which was based on the solar year. After Caesar’s trip he instated the new Julian calendar which would be 365 days with an extra day at the end of February every 4 years – the leap year! It wasn’t until after Caesars death that a month was named after him. Originally July was actually named Quintilius.
This picture is one of my favorites from 2024. It is from a villa in Rome where with Sensormatic we celebrated successes of our global business partner network.
It has been an amazing fulfilling year and I am looking forward even more to an even better 2025. Our future, including what is in front of us, has not been written. Always remember that you are in control of your destiny and can craft the life you always dreamed about.
Have a happy, healthy, safe, and prosperous New Year. In my native Italian, a toast to all of you, 'Salute', which literally translates 'to your health'.
Categories
Brilliant Research
The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence 2024 in USA Retail
USA retailers surveyed experienced a 93% increase in the average number of shoplifting incidents per year in 2023 versus 2019 and a 90% increase in dollar loss due to shoplifting during that same time period. And the rise in shoplifting has continued past the pandemic. 73% of those surveyed say that shoplifters are exhibiting more violence. - From National Retail Federation Read more
Smart Infographic
Visualizing What the World Googled in 2024
Insightful Videos
Why Food Prices Are Still So High In The U.S. -CNBC
As inflation cools considerably, prices for items like gasoline, used cars and energy have all declined accordingly. But food prices continue to outpace inflation, increasing by 28% since 2019. Read more
