6 Major Trends Reshaping Luxury Retail In 2020

The customers’ demand for a seamless, bespoke shopping experience, with a 360 degree access to retail across all touchpoints is resulting in luxury retail disruption. Retailers need to devise innovative ways to make their stores meaningful for new-age luxury buyers…

- Sheetal Jain, Founder & CEO, Luxe Analytics

Luxury retail is experiencing a paradigm shift. The traditional ways of doing retail are no more effective and require a radical makeover. Mobile commerce is blooming worldwide as growing number of consumers are using their smartphones to research, compare, purchase and return products. Does this mean brick-and-mortar stores are becoming passé? Absolutely true, many iconic retailers like Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, Victoria’s Secret, Barneys, to name a few, are closing their retail stores. To remain relevant, these stores are trying to reinvent themselves by going digital. But, simply moving sales online will not be enough for their survival. Retailers need to devise innovative ways to make their stores meaningful for new-age luxury buyers. In tandem, digital players such as Amazon, Rent the Runway and Warby Parker are opening physical stores as a way to augment their online experience. What’s leading to these changes? The customers’ demand for a seamless, bespoke shopping experience, with a 360 degree access to retail across all touchpoints is resulting in luxury retail disruption.

Here’s a look at 6 major trends reshaping the luxury retail environment.

1 Phygital Retail:

In the future, there will be need to blur the line between physical and digital retail. As per Juniper Research, fashion brands’ retail spend on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is predicted to rise from $2 billion in 2018 to $7.3 billion by 2022. Software developer SAP is working with Harrods to develop technology that provides customers with personalised recommendations from the in-store screens based on what they are wearing. Omnichannel brands are using digital behavior to inform in-store assortment. The Nike store in Los Angeles has furnished the store with Nike Cortez sneakers after understanding through digital commerce data that its local customers enjoy running.