Retailers’ constant experimentation with new concepts and formats helps to lay the groundwork for the industry’s future. For this reason, Euromonitor International profiles the most innovative new concepts in retail each year. This edition explores innovation across five key areas: New Digital Interfaces, Responsible Retail, Experiential Retail, Data-Driven Retail, and Simplified Shopping.
This report comes in PPT.
Technologies like AR/VR, the metaverse, livestreaming and social commerce are revolutionising retail and helping to create a more seamless shopping journey. Retailers leveraging these technologies can build strong, loyal customer bases and thrive in an increasingly digital world.
Retailers are diversifying their responsible practices to promote positive environmental and societal impacts. These moves aim largely at boosting brand reputations, but they also translate into new initiatives focusing on sustainability, transparency, diversity and inclusion. In Western Europe, this trend is reinforced by stricter regulatory requirements on business practices.
Retailers are embracing experiential retail concepts that rely on multisensory tools to transform their physical selling spaces into engaging and immersive locations that reflect their core values, entertain customers and create a sense of community. This trend is also resulting in the emergence of phygital retail spaces, bridging the gap between online and offline stores.
More businesses are relying on AI-powered advanced technologies to develop effective data-driven strategies across their value chain. This trend is supported by intensified competition, accelerating advancements in areas like generative AI natural language processing capacity, resulting in the emergence of more hyper-personalised services.
With consumers increasingly seeking convenient and value-driven solutions, retailers look to inject new life into the in-store shopping experience. Supported by technology, they are adopting solutions such as self-check out and novel fulfilment options that meet the evolving needs of their customers and help them stay competitive in an increasingly digital retail landscape.
Retail is the sale of new and used goods to consumers from a business for personal or household consumption from retail outlets, kiosks, market stalls, vending, direct selling and e-commerce. Retail is the aggregation of Retail Offline and Retail E-Commerce. Excludes specialist retailers of motor vehicles, motorcycles, vehicle parts. Also excludes fuel sales, foodservice sales, rental transactions, and wholesale sales (e.g. Cash and Carry). Sales value excluding or including VAT/Sales Tax. Retail also excludes the informal retail sector. Informal retailing is retail trade which is not declared to the tax authorities. Informal retailing encompasses (a) sales generated by unregistered and unlicensed retailers, i.e. retailers operating illegally, and (b) any proportion of sales generated by a registered and licensed retailer that is not declared to the tax authorities. Unregistered and unlicensed retailers operate predominantly (although not exclusively) as street hawkers or operate open market stalls, as these channels are harder for the authorities to monitor than permanent outlets. Activities in the illegal market, which is usually understood to refer to trade in illegal, counterfeit or stolen merchandise, are included within our definition of informal retailing. Activities in the “grey market”, which is usually understood to refer to trade in legal merchandise that is sold through unauthorized channels – for example cigarettes bought legally in another country, legally imported, but sold at lower prices than in authorized channels – will be included as informal retailing if no tax is paid on sale by the retailer. However if the retailer pays tax – for example on cigarettes bought legally in another country but sold at a lower price than standard – the sale is included within formal retail.
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