The 2021 RetailX Growth 2000 report has been published this week and points to just how essential ecommerce now is across the wider retail industry.
The changes on consumer shopping habits wrought by the pandemic have now fed through retail from top to bottom, from the largest retailers to the smallest – and it is often these smaller, growing, retailers that have perhaps leveraged online to greatest effect.
While larger retailers in the RetailX Top500 usually garner all the headlines, the next 2000 companies are the ones that often have the agility to make some interesting and significant changes to their retail craft: changes that consumers then actively embrace and which feed back up the chain to those Top500 players.
One of the key metrics that the Growth 2000 are tested on in the RetailX report is mobile – and that is where many of these smaller players are starting to make some real inroads. Driven by an ever-more mobile consumer base, getting on top of mobile is crucial.
Data from mobile marketing platforms Adjust and Adcolony both suggest that ecommerce apps are being installed at a growing rate and that many shoppers are set to use them this Christmas – in the US, hitting levels on a par with desktop. They are evening going to be using them to shop in stores.
Getting to grips with these technologies is now vital as there is everything to play for. Peak season has now started – we are right in the middle of the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend as you read this – and, depending on who’s data you look at, this peak season is set to be either a triumph or a tragedy for retailers.
On the one hand, Barclaycard is predicting that this Peak season will be a boon for SME retailers, with more than half (54%) of UK SMEs are expecting revenues to increase in Q4, compared with performance in Q3 2021. On the other, Adobe data suggests that many shoppers have tired of the blatant commercialism around Black Friday and won’t be joining in.
What is for sure is that retailers of all sizes need to make this Christmas work for them. Separate research out this week also shows that as many as one in five SMEs won’t survive into the New Year unless they can squeeze out a bumper Christmas. Difficult times., but those with agile ecommerce plans have much to be confident about.
