Although South Africa is not quite at ‘post-pandemic’ stage yet, data analytics Lightstone have analysed key trends and themes and concluded that encouraging opportunities await in the retail space .
This pandemic has provided
some tough operational environments for retail decision makers and even though
we may find ourselves in a downward trend right now, these circumstances have
forced us to look toward the future – perhaps sooner than initially
anticipated.
Futurist Richard Watson developed a mind map back in
2017 highlighting the future mega trends and technologies in a macro
environment. The map predicts what 2050 may look like. As a result of COVID-19,
these time frames have been brought forward to around 2035. By simply looking
at the map itself, the large grey circles are referred to as ‘mega trends’
with the smaller circles as ‘what’s happening now’, and the triangles as
‘what’s happening next’. Delivery robots, as an example were identified
as part of what’s happening next, but this technology – a mere 3 years later –
is already here and operational.
With regards to the small and
local trends identified in Watson’s theory, thanks to what the world has
recently experienced, we are already there, especially from a retail
perspective. Convenience and simplicity coupled with the convergence of
technogy has seen a significant drive toward virtualisation and personalisation
which is where the understanding of a customer becomes even more important.
“The retail industry needs to
rethink the way they operate under the ‘new norm’”,
says Roger Blewett, geospatial solutions consultant for Lightstone. “The
current environment offers retailers an extraordinary opportunity to think
about omnichannel strategies, which marries the digital with the bricks and
mortar retail space, that remains simple and convenient.”
With this new
shopping trend comes a need for efficient retail transactions (e.g. limited
queues), and an entirely different approach to brand loyalty where the visit to
stores that the customers make is a worthwhile one. Retailers will need to
start using more data centric insights and methodologies to understand their
customers and create better shopping experiences.
Says Joe Spring, senior
solutions consultant at Lightstone, “We have a huge
amount for respect for retail decision makers. They need to understand the
external environment from an economic perspective, as well as an internal
environment where cultural and consumer behaviour becomes key.”
The retail
environment is more complex now than it has ever been. Retailers need to plan
for very different future needs where decisions will need to be made based on
location management and turning that knowledge and data into solutions.
Strategies will need to be based on an understanding of the landscape, time
frame and consumer behaviour trends like the shift from regional centres to
hyperlocal community stores over the last year which Blewett and Spring
attribute to economic conditions and the increase in online shopping, over the
lockdown period.
They say they have tried to simplify this by using their own ‘Maps and Apps’ approach, where they are able to share complex data through simple solutions.
The map (above) is specifically for the traffic around the Mall of Africa in Midrand, Gauteng, representing 75% of the visits to the mall in Q1 and Q2 of 2020. The light and dark blue lines indicate where the Q1 (January – March) visits were coming from and the pink lines indicate the Q2 (April – June) visits, which clearly contracted substantially.
“Essentially this
move to localisation and convenience shopping is not a simple shift,” says
Spring, “It means that the super regionals will need to play a slightly
different role in driving shopping behaviour and understanding consumers’
future dependency on shopping malls. Shopping decisions will be based on
customer loyalty and the experiences offered by that particular
destination.”
Straight out the
“Covid gate”, Lightstone released the ShopSafe
App which offered users a view of the peak shopping times of a
specific mall so a) shoppers could plan their safe shopping times and b)
retailers could maintain a steady stream of customers as opposed to the
traditional ‘peak’ times. This is an example of how customer behaviour is
influencing retail activity.
From an e-commerce
perspective, using this data to influence the infrastructure of e-commerce
deliveries will help reduce repeat deliveries to the same location and protect
a brand’s customer satisfaction score by limiting delays and non-deliveries.
Partnering with the likes of What3Words that enables data companies to pinpoint locations will help
online businesses reduce the number is abandoned carts due to insufficient
location options available to online shopping customers.
“Data is an
incredibly powerful tool in getting to Know Your Customer (KYC),” says
Spring. “By using this type of information strategically, online, offline
and omnichannel retailers will be able to identify areas where they can grow
and help define product and/or service activity either from you to them, or the
other way around.”