Alan Treadgold - Navigating the New Retail Landscape: A Guide for Business Leaders

A central defining proposition frames the rationale for and the content of this book: namely that the retail industry globally is in the early stages of a transformation that will be more profound and far-reaching than any which has gone before.

A bold assertion? Certainly. Over the last 200 years or more, the retail industry globally has experienced a series of changes which have transformed the sector or large parts of it: the earliest formalization of retailing from market-based to store-based activities, the transformation of grocery stores from serviced to self-service environments, the rise of integrated shopping malls (often in locations away from traditional town and city centres), and the application of technology within retail enterprises and across supply chains used by firms to manage their operations. All of these changes have had transformative impacts on the retail sector. But none of these developments changed the fundamental character of the retailing sector or challenged the essential nature of what it means to be a retail enterprise. At the end of each of these phases of change, retailing was still a store-based activity (only the nature of the stores had changed); retailing was still conducted by retail enterprises (only the nature of the enterprises had changed), and geography still constrained choice (shoppers still needed to visit stores).

Today we are in the early stages of an entirely new landscape of retailing. What is so very different and so disruptive is that the very fundamentals of what it means to be a retailer and what the act of retailing is are being challenged and changed totally. No longer is it a prerequisite to have stores in order to be in the business of retailing. No longer are shoppers constrained by geography and their choice set limited only to those physical stores which they can access locally. Neither is it automatic that a traditional retail enterprise is the onlyor even the most effectivetype of enterprise to fulfil the needs of shoppers, as other enterprises such as consumer goods, logistics, media, and payment companies successfully establish direct relationships with shoppers. Nor does transformative disruption stop here. Entirely new kinds of enterprises are engaging directly with shoppers. These range from search engine firms to social media networks; from price comparison websites to online marketplaces; and from mobile phone and network providers to software engineers. In so doing these new intermediaries disintermediate othersincluding traditional retail enterprises.

The impact of the COVID-19 global pandemic adds additional layers of complexity and uncertainty to this new retail landscape. The combined health and economic crises that have been precipitated are of global scale and impact. They have served to accelerate trends that were already significantly dynamic. They have changed shopper behaviours in ways that were not anticipated. They have led to existential threats to some retail businesses which had hoped that they would have a longer period during which to successfully transform their strategy and organization to better align with and anticipate the needs and wants of their customers.