VISIONARY / TECHNOLOGY / LEADERSHIP

Top 25 Retail Website / Global Retail Influencer

“If you can dream it, you can do it.” ― Walt Disney

 
 

TonyNRF

"2025 will be the year where science fiction becomes a shopping reality. From AI-enabled hyper-personalized experiences to the rise of responsive ads via retail media networks to next-gen supply chain automation, the retail industry is transforming on all fronts." - Capgemini

What an exhausting, exciting, inspiring, highly motivating week in New York on the annual pilgrimage to the National Retail Federation retail Big Show to experience the future of retail. For the week, logged nearly 100,000 steps or 42 miles (67.5 Km) in visiting stores, engaging retailers, walking the show floor, meeting analysts, and showcasing new innovations for Sensormatic. 

On stage in a Sensormatic sponsored event with the retailer PVH, in my opening comments, I congratulated the audience for working in one of the most vibrant industries in the world. In 2025, the global retail industry will reach nearly $33 trillion, growing at roughly 4% per year through 2026.

RetailIndustry2

By 2026, 76% of total global retail sales will still be physical stores. The growth gap for online sales and stores is narrowing. Growing middle classes in large economies and emerging countries will keep the industry thriving for many years to the come.

This article summarizes my top 5 data supported takeaways from the 2025 edition of the Retail Big Show. One of these trends offers a counter view that needs to be addressed to keep the retail industry positively moving forward.  All the quotes cited in this article are directly from attendees or from articles published the same week. 

Where Tech and Tears Meet

 

2025

In a year where consumers still fretted about inflation, Santa Claus delivered a solid holiday shopping season. According to a Mastercard Spending Pulse report, total spending this holiday season increased 3.8% over 2023, surpassing the previously forecasted rise of 3.2% and beating last year's increase of 3.1%. For the shopping period between November 1 to December 24, online grew 6.7% while in-store sales grew 2.9%. 

On some levels, 2024 was a challenging year for the USA retail industry. According to Coresight, through November 2024, retailers were projected to close over 7,100 stores, a 69% increase over the same period in 2023. Somewhat surprisingly, the top 5 retail chains with the highest number of physical stores closures were Family Dollar, CVS Health, Big Lots, Conn's, and Rue21. 

The mixed results fulfill the prophecy by the Economic Intelligence Unit which in 2024 forecast offline retail as cloudy, online retail as stormy, food as cloudy, and non-food also stormy. In December 2024, three other major chains announced either bankruptcy proceedings or liquidation sales: The Container Store, Big Lots, and Party City. 

Is another retail apocalypse for physical stores in the 2025 retail horizon? What are the latest growth forecasts for global retail in 2025? What are the top 5 disruptive retail predictions for 2025?  

The 2025 Global Retail Forecasts

 

happy holidays 5828231 1280

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning." - Albert Einstein

The December holiday season is my favorite time of the year. As I write this, my wife is busily decorating the house. The Christmas trees and decorations are shimmering in multiple of the rooms. The New England winter village brings memories of the past. The nativity scene harks back to long established traditions of my native Italy. Throughout the day, my children and their mom are having whispering conversations on appropriate gifts for the family. Everyone becomes an arbiter in brokering gift lists that will make that Christmas Day very special. 

The 31 days that make the month of December includes the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, after which the days get progressively longer. The end of the month is packed with celebrations such as Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year's Eve.

The etymology of the month December indicates that it is formed from the Latin root decem, which means ten. How does this make sense in our 12th month? The ancient Roman calendar originally only had 10 months, beginning with the month of March. "January and February were eventually added after December to the end of the year. But, by the time the Julian Calendar was established in 45 BCE, January and February appeared at the beginning of the year, which bumped all of the original months (and their originally assigned names) back by two."

Why is December my favorite time of the year? What one word comes to mind as the holidays approach? How can one word foreshadow a brighter future?

The Greatest Gifts in Life

 

dash cart customer over the shoulder using touchscreen

Today's world is media noisy, but much of the messaging is broadly delivered with minimal impact. Television and newspapers were primary historical mediums for delivering product knowledge, differentiation, and building consumer loyalty. 

The average human attention span has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to a just 8 seconds in 2020. A goldfish now has a higher span that a human at 9 seconds. 

The internet has intensified the media noise. Globally, individuals between the age of 16 to 64 now spend an average six hours, 40 minutes online (for the United States is 7 hours and 3 minutes). This equates to 47 hours per week and 101 days per year. By this estimation, beginning at age 18, a person who lives to 80 will have spent 17 years of their adult life using the internet. 

The increased online digital noise is changing viewer habits of traditional media such as television. Note the decline in daily viewing time with digital surpassing traditional television in 2022. 

ScreenTime

Younger generations are accelerating the shift to digital. About 1 out of 6 Millennials said they did not watch any original TV series from traditional TV sets within the past 30 days, a significant trend highlighting the potential for linear TV viewing to erode over time. If young people do watch television, it is on other digital devices, often skipping the commercials.

In the 1970's, the average person was exposed to 500 to 1,600 ads per day. The changes in media consumption including the proliferation of digital devices, growth of social media, programmatic advertising, and content distribution have dramatically elevated the ad numbers 4,000 to 10,000 per day.

Focusing on the retail industry, how does one break through all this digital noise and deliver effective content? Where is the best place to increase attention spans for targeted ads for the consumer? What is the profitable future of retail media networks?

The Retail Media Networks Opportunity

 

christmas 3688163 1280

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. With decorations now appearing in stores as early as August, reminders are everywhere on the continued importance of each holiday shopping season. 

Some statistics on the importance of retail, the holiday season,and the impact on the overall USA economy:

  • Roughly 70% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is generated by consumer spending.
  • Holiday sales in the months of November and December have averaged 19% of total annual retail sales over the last five years.
  • In 2023, USA retailers hired between 345,000 to 450,000 holiday seasonal workers. 
  • 75% of retail small businesses rely heavily on holiday sales to meet their annual revenue goals. 

It is time to summarize multiple of my favorite retail holiday forecasts  For 2024, most of these project lower historical retail sales growth, even as the September's job report continued to deliver positive economic surprises.  

Global Consumers Are Feeling the Pinch

 

ShopliftingSign

In the latest USA National Retail Federation Security Survey published in September 2023, retail shrink increased from 1.6% of sales from 1.4% in the previous year. This equates to $112.1 billion in losses, up from $93.9 in the previous year. The top 3 retailer priorities in the new NRF survey versus the previous year were organized retail crime (78.1%), violence during a criminal act (72.3%), and homelessness concerns (72.3%). 

2023USAShrink

What's changed since the 2023 NRF security survey was published? How does theft impact inventory distortion? What are the latest shoplifting trends? How do consumers respond to retail theft? Why is retail crime at a crisis point? How does USA compare to other countries with this problem? How do we solve the problem of retail shrink?

The $1.7 Trillion Dollar Global Retail Problem

 

success 3195027 1280

For all those that have been following my personal branding journey, the pattern that you should have recognized is that I am very passionate about three topics: retail, innovation, and leadership. When I am interviewed, often I tell the reporters that I feel I was born in a retail store. That feeling is based on the reality that from Junior High School to a Master's Degree, I worked in a retail store. Post those university degrees, my first role was with the technology company NCR in sales and marketing and the passion for innovation followed. 

The success of my retail and technology careers has their origin in a more fundamental building block of my life in the triad of passions which is leadership. Following a difficult week of reflection, I want to take a step back from retail and innovation content and return to the topic of leadership. 

McKinsey defines leadership as "a set of behaviors used to help people align their collective direction, to execute strategic plans, and to continually renew an organization." There is one word in this definition that the most important than all the others. 

If your ambition is to be a leader, the one word you need to focus on in the McKinsey definition is 'renew'. To renew means you embrace change as a required baseline element for success. 

In a 1913 journal article, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, "we but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do." The famous quote that probably stemmed from this journal entry that is attributed to Gandhi (which he never actually said) is "be the change you want to see in the world."

Personally, embracing renewal and change has led to a life of continuous improvement. Every day is indeed 'Day One' which includes both learning something new and exploring endless possibilities for personal and professional growth. 

Day 1 Philosophy Explained

View All