NRF 2020: Top Takeaways from the Retail’s Big Show
Future retail success will depend on your ability to develop a “human-first digital strategy,” said Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks, while speaking on the main stage at NRF Retail’s BIG Show 2020. Over 40,000 retail operators and experts from 99 nations attended the conference and expo in New York City on January 12-14.
NRF 2020 introduced a major shift from the old adage that “every retail company is a tech company” towards a more human-centric vision of retail, where high tech helps become high touch.
Customers are still in control, and they are more demanding than ever. They expect brands to offer simple, convenient solutions to complicated lives; to help solve, rather than worsen, global pollution, and environmental degradation. All with a human touch. Thankfully, technology can help. Tech such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud, and tools that make employees mobile can support brands to create deeper, more meaningful connections while still delivering seamless, convenient experiences.
Top Takeaways
- Looking for simplicity and convenience
- When it comes to stock, less can be more
- Brands joining forces
- The mainstream of voice
- Stores as a human experience
- Accounting for sustainability and meaning
- Digital before physical
- Replacing ownership with use
- Recommerce
- Leading with values
- What the future holds: words of advice
- Develop your own tech to achieve your own goals
- Have a strategy – and be ready to rethink it, constantly
- Rethink the physical store as a digital space
- Consider the growing role of sustainable modes of consumption
- Build trust for long-lasting customer-brand relationships
- Your physical stores are still important
- You need data to understand your customers
- If you use data the right way, nothing can stop you on your path to success
Download a copy of the NRF Trends 2020 Article (NRF 2020 Report).
Note: LS Retail is a world-leading provider of business management software solutions for retail, hospitality, and forecourt businesses of all sizes. Our all-in-one management systems power tens of thousands of stores and restaurants worldwide, within such diverse industries as fashion, electronics, furniture, duty-free, restaurants, coffee shops, forecourt, c-stores, and more. LS Retail products and solutions are sold through a global network of partners.
