The State of Retail this Q4
While preparations for Q4 well are truly underway, we wanted to provide some last-minute quick wins that asset owners and operators can use to prepare for the most successful Golden Quarter possible.
While the consumer market was a tough watch in H1, coming into H2 we’ve seen UK inflation hitting the Bank of England’s 2% target, and interest rates coming down as predicted. As a result, Retail Economics’ Richard Lim, founder of the independent retail insights consultancy, has predicted Q4 2024 to be the most fruitful we’ve seen for several years. Here are some focus areas for the best golden quarter possible.
The Black Friday Experience
Yes, Black Friday still remains an online-first event for the retail industry, but in-store sales grew in 2023, with 44% of UK consumers purchasing a Black Friday deal in a physical location. A similar trend was recorded in the US, with shopper traffic to stores up 2-5% YoY.
Yet, with the ever-increasing ease of online shopping, physical retail must look to where it can lean on cross-channel marketing to create a harmonised approach that encourages shoppers to come into their nearest stores this year. This can be done through geotargeting, personalised recommendations and community building. The incentive for the customer? The sensory experience.
Although online wish lists, early access to sales and VIP online shopping experiences all help build the hype for the sales season, none of these initiatives offer the ability for consumers to touch, see and smell the products on offer. As a result, quality assurance is difficult for consumers to get and as a result, retailers deal with more and more returns.
While brand communities exist online, there’s no denying that community is better nurtured face-to-face.
This year, retailers should be looking to the online experience to build the hype for physical events ahead of Black Friday to help those more mindful buyers to purchase during the sales period. These sensory events are the perfect way not only to build brand awareness but to get shoppers into their local stores to experience products in person. Whether they buy online in the sales or in-person, the retailer wins either way. Enabling this cohesive shopping experience through a unique brand collaboration, wellness or tasting experience will help the golden quarter boom this year.
Address the Eco-Anxiety
Experience isn’t just a buzzword, and sustainability shouldn’t be either. There’s a reason brands have their reputation (and revenue) significantly damaged by greenwashing. It’s because consumers are showing all the signs of being more and more anxious about the environment. This has fed into their behaviour and it’s time to listen. With 52% of consumers feeling guilty about their effect on the environment, and 72% of consumers worrying those in power will never make the required changes, consumers are taking more and more steps to limit their impacts.
For shopping centres, this means that their eco-efforts need to be communicated and cohesive throughout every store. Many shopping centres have sustainability charters, but the question is: who knows about them? Communication is paramount to ensuring that sustainability is lived and breathed by each member of the community. From owners to operators, retailers to consumers; this cohesion is essential going into the Golden Quarter. For a great example of sustainability being front and centre, you can take a look at Liverpool One’s public commitments to the environment.
Look-back-and-learn
In every business model, one major part of success is learning from what went wrong. Just as it’s important to have accessible data, it’s important to carve out the time to get insights from the data. This look-back-and-learn approach may seem obvious, but so often teams throw themselves into planning without first analysing what was done before. Looking at past years’ sales data and expenses, conducting demand forecasting, contacting suppliers ahead of time, assessing staffing needs and preparing for after-sales services are good ways to ensure YoY growth.
It’s remarkable how we can forget the negatives so make sure you have access to a single source of truth that stores all the roadblocks your destination has faced in previous sales periods. Whether these were accessibility, maintenance, security or retailer-specific issues, preparing for every likely risk is something you won’t regret.
Digital Unity
While experience, sustainability, tight strategies, and data-led decisions are all key ways to bolster performance this Q4, there needs to be a way to house all of these initiatives under one unified solution to help reduce costs, decrease risk and increase revenue.
Integrations that make the online and offline journey easier are one thing, but it’s all about bespoke apps this 2024. Enterprise platforms that enable stakeholder cohesion in the shopping centre ecosystem exist, and they’re helping retail spaces innovate.
Whether you need updates on store locations and extended opening hours, accessibility information, security protocols or promotions and event information, shopping centre management can now lean on the app world in the same way consumers do.
For more information on seamless journeys for the shopping centre ecosystem, speak to the Mallcomm team today.