The pandemic has affected everyone irrespective of economic background, geographical location, or social well-being. Retail too, like many other sectors, was immensely impacted by COVID-19. There was a significant shift observed in consumer behavior by the time retail outlets reopened. At the time of the pandemic, consumers preferred to stay indoors which led to a significant shift in their consumption and shopping patterns.

At IReC (Industry of Retail and E-commerce Summit) 2022, retail leaders shared their opinion on how retail has changed - a complete shift in retailing that is now emerging compared to what it used to be prior to the pandemic. To discuss the vision for 2022, retail stellars shared their ambitious plans for growth, forging new partnerships with innovative play, and new brand launches. These brands have positioned themselves as leading omnichannel retailers by building companies’ digital capabilities, omnichannel operations, and online growth with enhanced physical play.

The Emergence of Well Researched Consumers

The one thing that has changed in the last two years is that when a consumer is doing the transaction or is willing to pay for the brand, they do a good amount of research. People are doing rigorous research on the product that they want to buy and based on that research, they decide whether to purchase the product in-store or online.

“We had our digital platform pre-pandemic but it was not designed to handle the demand that was coming in. Post that demand acceleration, we brought many changes in our digital ecosystem. For instance, we linked our 270 stores with our digital platform. The thing that happened due to the pandemic was that consumers became used to the online environment and had adapted the concept of same-day delivery or two-day delivery. Therefore, they expected the same thing from all the brands and we have to ensure that we are delivering the same,” Rahul Vira, CEO, Skechers South Asia Pvt. Ltd said.

Personalization Becomes a Key

The whole pandemic changed the internet from being a discount-led cannibalistic model to more of an incremental model. It also bought a lot more focus on personalization for consumers.

“The whole transformation and transition from brick-and-mortar to online have been terrific for us. This was good for us as consumers started seeing the internet as an option rather than just using it to find the best price. Consumers started seeing the brands through different lenses like social media, e-commerce websites, and stores. Due to this, technology has evolved quite rapidly, which led to the larger piece of the consumer journey - Personalization - because when they communicate with a retailer, they want it personalized for them,” Nissan Joseph, CEO, Metro Brands Ltd stated.

Creating a Seamless Online-To-Offline Experience

Pre pandemic, the online and offline mediums were competing with each other. But with the closure of stores during the pandemic, the customers started shifting online and due to this, online saw serious growth. The contribution of online sales has been a significant amount for all the offline retailers even after the pandemic. On the other hand, when stores started opening, the customers started coming back, they started buying from the offline stores as they wanted to experience the product. Therefore, it's firmly established now that customers want both online and offline channels of distribution.

“After the consumers do their research before buying the product, they decide whether they want to buy online or offline. They want an experience that is seamless between the two. This further means that brands have to make the experience seamless for the customer whether he goes online or offline, and that is where Omnichannel has come into play. The brands have to maintain the same language to the customer, whether he is online or offline, whether he is in a physical store, whether he's on travel retail or city retail, or MBO or EBO, etc. In addition to omnichannel and multichannel, AI is going to play a very significant role once the technology matures in a market like India,” Rajesh Jain, MD, and CEO, Lacoste asserted.

Technology: A Game Changer

As consumers have evolved, technology is an integral part of what they buy.

“We invested in this smartwatch technology in 2016 and now it has become a significant proportion of our business. We were kind of early movers in the game and brought smartwatches into India in 2016. And now it contributes a significant proportion of our business. When we got into this business, we were not a technology company at that point in time. But we wanted to be market leaders in this category. Hence, we acquired a technology company in 2015 and also tied up with the largest technology company in the world, Google, in terms of our operating system and also partnered with Qualcomm, one of the largest semiconductors players in the market,” Johnson Verghese, MD, Fossil India said.

“India is actually quite on the map in terms of the technology. Technology is a driver and an enabler for all the plans that the brands have. If the brands are looking at offline retail as the core business, there is no way they can run the business without technology being an integrated proportion of what they do. In terms of how to reach your customer, how to deliver products, how to make that whole experience, the entire journey starting from the discovery process all to the time of purchase and even perhaps return all of that needs to be technology-driven,” he added.

Value Commerce is Important

Value commerce is providing value to the customer at every channel, every end, and every time.

“Still in this inflationary scenario, you need to keep building better value and more value to the customer and also value for your own organization and ecosystem. I think it is difficult because the average selling price of those value products is lower and that becomes a much more difficult proposition when you come up to that whole digital commerce and e-commerce mindset. Given the experience, which is what fashion is all about, and then giving that experience to the customer physically, and also trying to meet those pieces digitally, products need to be economical and affordable,” Lalit Agarwal, Founder, and MD, V-Mart Retail Ltd noted.