As retailers head into the thick of the holiday season, Deloitte has released its key predictions for the period ahead, noting consumer sentiment is positive, and convenience, good products and great deals will be high on their holiday wish list.

Here’s an insight into Deloitte’s latest findings and the six retail trends retailers need to know this holiday.

Strong consumer sentiment

After surveying over 4400 people across the US, Deloitte’s 2019 Holiday Retail Survey indicates retailers look set to enjoy a cheerful period ahead.

They tip retail sales will grow 4-4.5 per cent this year with e-commerce expected to increase 14-18 per cent over 2018.

They also note the average consumer will fork out $1496 per household over the holiday period.

Convenience, good products and deals

There will be three main drivers of purchasing habits in the coming weeks, with convenience, good products and great deals among shopper’s major priorities.

The report found:

• 76 per cent of shoppers would be looking for a good product

• 75 per cent would be focused on price

• 65 saw convenience as a key purchasing factor

Free delivery over fast delivery

With the consumer focused on convenience, fast shipping, free shipping and buy online pick up in store (BOPIS) are proving popular offerings.

But of those options, free shipping has emerged as the clear winner.

The report noted 85 per cent of consumers preferred free shipping over fast shipping and were willing to wait three days or more for delivery.

Meanwhile almost half of all consumers intended to use BOPIS in the coming weeks.

Online purchasing to increase

Online spending is tipped to continue outpacing spending instore in 2019, with 59 per cent of money spent over the period expected to be spent online, compared to 36 per cent in-store.

Meanwhile, two thirds of shoppers indicated they will research online and then purchase at least some gifts from a bricks and mortar outlet.

When it comes to the way that shoppers access online, smartphones will be the tool of choice, with 70 per cent of people indicating they will make a purchase with a smart phone, compared to 67 per cent in 2018, and just 59 per cent in 2017.

Inspiration will be found online

Aside from purchasing, consumers will also be seeking much of their gift inspiration online, with half of all shoppers undecided as to what they will buy when they begin holiday shopping.

As a result:

• 65 per cent will turn to online retailers

• 58 per cent will consult search engines

• 52 per cent will visit retail stores

• 40 per cent will visit retailer websites or apps

• 31 per cent will look at review or comparison sites

• 18 per cent will turn to social media

• 18 per cent will look at print media

• 12 per cent will peruse electronic media

• 5 per cent will consult virtual assistants

Shopping to peak early December

Contrary to other years where shopping has peaked in November, this year consumers are expecting to make many of their purchases in early December.

Deloitte notes the trend may be driven by the fact Thanksgiving falls unusually late in 2019, pushing Black Friday to November 29, and Cyber Monday to December 2.

Their research found:

• 35 per cent of consumers expected to purchase holiday season products prior to the end of October

• 44 per cent would purchase between November 1 and 15

• 64 per cent would purchase between November 16 and 30

• 69 per cent would be shopping between December 1 and 15

• 51 per cent would purchase items between December 16 and 31

You can learn more about Deloitte’s predictions here, or see what the National Retail Federation expects of this holiday season here

Most shoppers believe technology is improving their retail experience, and it is in the product search and decision-making process that consumers value innovation most.

These are the findings of the latest Consumer View Report from the National Retail Federation, who note while technology is making major inroads into the retail experience, there is still room for improvement in terms of awareness and delivery.

Here’s an insight into what the NRF found.

The robot in the room – Summer 2019 Consumer View Report

In early September, the NRF released their Summer 2019 Consumer View Report. Entitled ‘The Robot in the Room’ the quarterly report takes a deep dive into how shoppers feel about and use the technology currently available in retail.

The report notes more than three in five shoppers believe technology and innovation has improved the retail experience, but this varies across the channels available.

They found:

• 80 per cent of shoppers felt technology had improved their experience online
• 66 per cent believed it had improved their experience in-store
• 63 per cent felt it improved their experience on mobile

Eliminating the guess work

When it comes to where consumers value technology most, the majority felt innovation added real value in product search and selection and could be utilized to take the frustration out of the pre-purchase process.

The report found the following top three priorities:

• 55 per cent of shoppers wanted to know whether a product was in-store or available, and 52 per cent felt it was very important that brands or retailers have these technologies and innovations.

• 49 per cent wanted assistance comparing products prices or reviews, and 42 per cent felt these technologies were very important.

• 47 per cent wanted it to be easier to find a product or location, with 41 per cent viewing this technology as important.

Checkout experience

When it came to purchasing methods, most consumers were aware of new technologies like self-checkouts, mobile payments, and buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) and many shoppers have embraced retail solutions that simplify the checkout experience.

Self-checkout – 62 per cent of consumers are aware of the self-checkout, 89 per cent of those who are aware have tried it and 63 per cent were satisfied.

Mobile payment – 59 per cent of consumers are aware of mobile payment. Of those, 57 per cent have tried it and 69 per cent are satisfied.

BOPIS – 56 per cent of consumers are aware of buy online pickup in store. Of those, 71 per cent have tried it and 67 per cent were satisfied with the process.

Beyond the basics

Beyond the basics of product search and selection, consumers are also now more aware of new technologies available like voice assistants, smart fitting rooms, and social shopping.

Although they may be aware, many are yet to experience this technology, but those who have used it report a generally positive response.

Voice assistants – 43 per cent of shoppers are aware of voice assistants. Of those 64 per cent have tried them and are interested in doing so again.

Social shopping – 34 per cent of shoppers are aware of social shopping, with 78 per cent having tried it and interested in using it again.

In-app store navigation – 56 per cent of shoppers have heard of in-app store navigation. Of those, 89 per cent have tried it and would do so again.

Visual search – 27 per cent are aware of virtual search, and of those, 86 per cent have tried it and would do so again.

Virtual reality – 21 per cent of consumers have heard of virtual reality. Of those 82 per cent have tried it and would be interested in using it again.

Augmented reality – On a similar noted, 1 have also heard of augmented reality, while 86 per cent have tried it and are interested in using it again.

Virtual fit – 19 per cent of shoppers have heard of virtual fi. Of those who are aware, 83 per cent have used it and are interested in trying it again.

Smart dressing room – Just 15 per cent of shoppers have heard of smart dressing rooms, and 88 per cent of them have tried it and would do so again.

The final word

Although consumers are now more aware of technology and its role in the retail experience, its value at present lies in simplifying and streamlining the shopping process.

“Roughly half of consumers are very interested in solutions that take the uncertainty out of shopping — whether that’s knowing that an item is in stock or getting accurate information on prices and reviews,” the NRF report noted.

“And ability to address these needs is already shaping consumers’ decisions on the brands and retailers they shop. These more tactical needs currently outweigh the interest in more personalized or engaging experiences. That is not to say that personalization or retail-tainment is not a differentiating factor for shoppers, but retailers first have to deliver on the basics.”

In the world of retail, a host of little acronyms abound, and one of the most recent to attain popularity is RFID or Radio Frequency Identification.

Not to be confused with RF, which is a common term in electronic article surveillance, RFID offers retailers a host of benefits when it comes to inventory tracking, an improved customer experience and managing stock.

So, what exactly is RFID?

What is RFID?

Arguably one of the biggest innovations in the past 20 years, RFID involves small chips that can collect and store data. The technology is utilised for a variety of purposes including animal microchipping, passports, and the tracking of cars during the manufacturing process.

In retail, it’s used in conjunction with apparel or product tagging, providing insight into stock levels, relaying when an item is picked up and put back, and adding limitless potential to enhance the customer’s in-store experience.

RFID tags have readers to decipher the information they contain, but unlike barcodes, an RFID tag can be recognised from a distance or even when embedded in an object, allowing for greater accuracy in stock monitoring.

What’s the difference between RF and RFID?

Although they sound alike, RF and RFID are vastly different. RF refers to radio frequency and in retail relates to an electronic article surveillance system and tags or labels that work on a swept frequency.

RF tags and labels answer the call of an RF antenna and are used as a theft prevention strategy to notify a retail outlet when an item is being shoplifted.

Meanwhile, RFID is used as a barcode but reveals vast amounts of information about a product. This insight is contained in its chip and can include information like the product type, colour, size, date of manufacture, shipping date, exact location and more.

Forbes explains: “…where a simple barcode can tell you, ‘this is a $250 jacket in grey’, an RFID tag can tell you ‘this is a $250 jacket in grey, size medium, the one which was returned last week and it’s just walking out the door’”.

RFID’s main purposes include inventory tracking, stock monitoring and customer experience, and here’s how that plays out…

Supply chain accuracy

When applied at the point of manufacture or distribution, RFID allows retailers to track items throughout the entire supply, distribution and sales chain. This helps minimise stock loss from the outset, right through to the sales floor.

In fact, recent reports indicate RFID can improve supply chain insight by offering 99.9 per cent accuracy.

Inventory counting

One of the most compelling arguments for RFID lies in the efficiency it offers in inventory tracking. Statistics indicate RFID allows inventory accuracy to increase from 65 per cent to 95 per cent.

Meanwhile, it provides up-to-the-minute information and dramatically shortens the time spent stocktaking. Where manual counts allow for 250 items per hour, RFID can cycle count inventory at a rate of 18,000 items per hour.

RFID can also enable streamlined processes like automatic reordering when stock levels fall too low.

Customer experience

The third advantage of RFID that’s now being embraced by retailers is its ability to improve the customer service experience courtesy of the unique identification features and information contained within each chip.

Cutting-edge retailers are experimenting with a whole host of features and add-ons that enable consumers and sales staff to use RFID to quickly ascertain whether an item is available in another colour, in another size, at another outlet, when it will arrive in-store and more.

The technology is being applied to everything from smart mirrors to virtual sales assistants, and with its ability to detect items within a vast area, some predict it may do away with the checkout all together.

RFID adoption

This combination of inventory accuracy, supply chain tracking and benefits to the customer experience are now seeing RFID adoption rapidly increase, with Accenture’s 2018 RFID in Retail Study finding 92 per cent of US retailers are now progressing towards RFID.

“A majority of retailers worldwide adopt RFID for the technology’s most well-known use case: inventory accuracy. Within just one year of leveraging RFID, retailers typically recognize increased inventory accuracy and omnichannel fulfilment,” they note.

Professor Robert Hanson of Northern Michigan University, and Asset Protection & Safety VP Dan Faketty of Southeastern Grocers took a walk through the latest National Retail Security Survey findings, noting the 28th annual survey revealed retail loss in the US now totalled 1.38 per cent of sales or $50.6 billion.

Within those figures there were “new threats and emerging areas of concern”, the pair reflected.

These included:

• Identifying the cause of shrink

• Combatting internal theft through mobile POS fraud

• Combatting external theft through mobile POS fraud

• Understanding the technology criminals use

In terms of employee theft, they explained the average dollar loss per incident had remained stead for the past four years, equating to $1264 in 2018.

Meanwhile, each shoplifting incident resulted in an average loss of $546.67.

When it came to robberies, the average loss per incident was $2885.15, which was a 65 per cent decline on 2015.

You can read more about the full findings of this report here.

 

 

Photo Source: NRF Protect 2019

A faster, more efficient era of mobile internet has arrived and with it comes fresh opportunities for physical retail.

Currently rolling out across the US, 5G is set to offer increased speed, less latency and greater bandwidth that will impact everything from the back end of retail operations to the customer experience instore.

Here’s what 5G means to retail…

What is 5G?

5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile telecommunications, so it’s the type of internet you utilise when using a smart phone. It supersedes 4G, 3G and 2G, offering more data, a faster transfer rate, greater efficiency and less latency.

The upshot is, your mobile internet will be faster and more efficient, and there’ll be more bandwidth available for things like video streaming on-the-go.

Now 5G is steadily rolling out across the US and retailers are investigating the best ways to utilise the new technology.

The in-store experience

5G is predicted to be a major driver of the Internet of Things, allowing more devices to connect to mobile internet with greater efficiency.

As AT&T notes that’s going to better cater to emerging trends in retail that shape a shopper’s experience when they enter a store.

That includes a range of new technologies, like:

• personalized digital signage

• magic mirrors

• augmented reality

• virtual reality

• smart shelves

• video and pattern recognition of shoppers

Stores Magazine recently explained many retailers had sought to introduce this technology, but the heavy toll on bandwidth proved a challenge.

“While the hardware for digital fitting rooms, immersive experiences and interactive displays has long been available, retailers have often struggled with adoption due to the heavy bandwidth required to support these experiences,” they note. “5G could potentially eliminate these limitations.”

Mobile apps

Although mobile apps are nothing new, the speed at which they will be delivered and the seamless experience they will offer is set to transform under the guidance of 5G.

As retailers replace fixed internet with more efficient mobile, consumers will no longer have to overcome the glitch of connecting to a store’s network in order to access the benefits, Stores Magazine further explained.

“Having to log into store networks to access in-store functionality has often been a hiccup in the omnichannel experience,” the magazine notes.

“In a fully optimized 5G environment, customers could seamlessly walk in and out of any store with a high-speed, real-time connection that enables them to engage with the retailer throughout the process.”

Store operations

From the mobile Point of Sale to RFID tagging, store inventory and logistics, much of the back-end of modern retail depends upon the Cloud.

5G is set to speed up access to the Cloud, reduce the latency involved, and allow more devices to use and access it effectively at the same time.

This means the Cloud will be accessible in real and immediate time, improving everything from the performance of back-end operations to the reliability and immediacy of mobile Point of Sale.

Data and analytics

To create a personalised, customised experience, retailers are increasingly relying on the gathering of data and analytics.

In the recent retail technology study Wake Up Call for Digital Transformation Intel’s Alex Gefrides noted: “In-store analytics are being applied to every phase of the retail process by determining retail trends, predicting where the demand will be for products, optimizing pricing for a competitive edge, identifying consumer purchasing patterns and behaviors, and other insights for immediate decisions”.

5G will better furnish retailers with the ability to do this in real time.

So much to come

As Stores Magazine notes, the ways in which 5G will transform both retail and the wider world is in many ways yet to be fully explored.

“The faster speeds, performance and bandwidth will transform every industry,” they note. “No one can tell you what the world will look like in 10 years, but because of 5G, it will look very different. The same as it’s very different today than it was 10 years ago.”

Whether your retail outlet has been targeted by shoplifters or you’re just looking to better understand the playing field, there are a host of facts and figures that indicate just how prevalent retail shrink is in America.

Here’s a quick recap of 10 scary retail shrink statistics in the US…

Loss costs US retailers almost $50 billion annually

The National Retail Federation (NRF) found shoplifting, employee theft, error and fraud cost the industry an astounding $46.8 billion in 2018 alone.

In context, that means shrink sees the industry lose 1.33 per cent in sales.

Most loss is due to shoplifting

In the US, shoplifting and organized retail crime (ORC) are the prime contributors to retail shrink, with the NRF noting 35.7 per cent of loss is due to external theft, outpacing employee theft at 33.2 per cent, administrative error at 18.8 per cent, unknown loss at 6.6 per cent and vendor fraud or error at 5.8 per cent.

External theft has been the primary source of retail loss for the past four years in a row.

The average incident cost has almost doubled

The average cost of a shoplifting incident has almost doubled to $559 since 2015.

Shrink is costing retailers more

In 2018, 20 per cent of NRF survey of respondents reported shrink at 2 per cent of sales or more. That is up from only 17.1 per cent reporting a shrink rate above 2 per cent in 2015.

1 in 11 Americans shoplift

Past figures from the National Association of Shoplifting Prevention indicate one in 11 Americans shoplift. In cold hard numbers, that means 27 million Americans are shoplifters, while 10 million have been caught in the act at some point in the past five years.

There are three types of shoplifters

Researchers commonly break shoplifters down into three distinct categories:

• The professional – This shoplifter steals for economic gain as part of a group or individually.

• The amateur – This shoplifter steals for the “rush”, at the behest of friends or out of simple necessity.

• The opportunist – This type of shoplifter rarely enters a retail environment intending to steal, but rather takes items because security is lacking, or the opportunity is available.

A repeat offence

A FaceFirst study found 60 per cent of known shoplifters enter at least two separate locations of the same retail chain, while 20 per cent visit three or more locations.

Shoplifters steal for a variety of reasons

Shoplifters steal for both rational and non-rational reasons, with researchers noting they usually steal due to one of five factors:

• Socio-economic disadvantage

• To fund drug use/addiction

• Thrill seeking

• Kleptomania

• Absent mindedness

Footwear is a frequent target

Looking across the verticals at what thieves are most likely to target, the most recent Global Retail Theft Barometer indicates the most commonly shoplifted items in America are:

• The apparel sector – footwear

• In DIY/home improvement – power tools

• In electronics – mobile devices and accessories

• In food and beverages – wine and liquor

• In health and beauty – fragrances and perfumes

When people shoplift

In the US winter is prime shoplifting season, along with sales periods. Much of that theft is driven by the festive season, with 81 per cent of winter losses occurring during holidays/festivities.

This shrinkage is prompted by increased foot traffic throughout stores, making it harder to track and detect theft, and is then further complicated by casual employees, who often have less training in store protocols and shoplifting detection.

Looking to combat theft?

You can learn more about the tools and strategies to combat shoplifting here, or speak with our friendly staff about implementing effective EAS solutions like security tags and labels.