The events of 2022 are unknown, the underlying trends are not

If there is any­thing the last eigh­teen months has taught us, it is that noth­ing is cer­tain. Every­thing can change in a heart­beat. Despite this tur­bu­lence, it is pos­si­ble to pre­dict some trends that will fol­low us into 2022. Here are three of the big ones.

Online shop­ping

Over the past decade, con­sumers have become more dig­i­tal­ly savvy, with the pro­por­tion of pur­chas­es made online ris­ing steadi­ly. In Feb­ru­ary 2020, online pur­chas­es of non-food were around 30% of retail sales. At the height of the third lock­down this fig­ure had more than dou­bled, before set­tling back to around 40%. This is five years’ growth at pre­vi­ous tra­jec­to­ries in just eigh­teen months.

While unlike­ly the dou­ble-dig­it growth in online sales will con­tin­ue, the pan­dem­ic has cement­ed exist­ing gains and is accel­er­at­ing changes in con­sumer behav­iour. This, in turn, is chang­ing the role of stores and high streets, which must find new ways of draw­ing in cus­tomers. Mean­while, many retail­ers invest­ed huge­ly in expand­ing their online capac­i­ty and dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty for their cus­tomers.

Expe­ri­en­tial retail, in hiber­na­tion dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, is now com­ing back, with greater use of pop ups, shows, and enter­tain­ment. Like­wise, the inte­gra­tion of online and in-store retail will con­tin­ue. Every time a cus­tomer brows­es online and buys in-store, or brows­es in-store before pur­chas­ing on their phone, they prove the impor­tance of all chan­nels – and the way they knit togeth­er. 

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty

COP26 may have been and gone, but the sus­tain­abil­i­ty agen­da is here to stay. It is being tak­en on by gov­ern­ments, busi­ness­es and, most impor­tant­ly, cus­tomers. Almost four in five of us say we are chang­ing our pur­chase pref­er­ences based on the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of prod­ucts we buy.

Many of us are drawn to prod­ucts with­out plas­tic pack­ag­ing, sourced using sus­tain­able mate­ri­als, or con­tain­ing recy­cled con­tent. This is an impor­tant step towards net zero, but the best choic­es are still being held back by a lack of infor­ma­tion and trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing the ori­gin or con­tents of many prod­ucts. 

Busi­ness­es and gov­ern­ments have a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to fill this infor­ma­tion void, as well as a duty to help nudge us all into mak­ing bet­ter choic­es. The BRC’s Cli­mate Action Roadmap ini­tia­tive, sup­port­ed by over 75 retail­ers and brands, aims to help build momen­tum on improv­ing the infor­ma­tion avail­able to cus­tomers, as well as dri­ving a wider move to more sus­tain­able busi­ness prac­tices.

Prices

While the rise of dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion and dri­ve towards green busi­ness and con­sumerism rep­re­sent pos­i­tive changes in the con­ve­nience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty of retail, the trend towards ris­ing prices has no win­ners.

From sea­son­al farm work­ers to HGV dri­vers to ware­house staff, the whole sup­ply chain is being stretched by labour short­ages, lead­ing to ris­ing wage bills. The HGV dri­ver short­age alone has seen dri­vers receive sign-on and reten­tion bonus­es of thou­sands of pounds, push­ing up the cost of get­ting goods to where they need to be.

There are oth­er pres­sures on prices; 2021 saw ener­gy prices soar, forc­ing many ener­gy com­pa­nies out of busi­ness. Imports are more expen­sive. Retail­ers are nav­i­gat­ing new checks and paper­work as a result of the UK’s depar­ture from the EU. Glob­al ship­ping costs have been ris­ing steadi­ly for over a year, mean­ing the cost of mov­ing a sin­gle con­tain­er from Asia to the UK might be ten times what it was in 2019.

Ulti­mate­ly it is cus­tomers who will pick up the tab. Retail­ers have seen mar­gins squeezed and are sim­ply unable to absorb all these new costs.

I hope that, despite the back­drop of that infla­tion, con­sumers and retail­ers can work togeth­er to dri­ve the deci­sions nec­es­sary to cre­ate the pos­i­tive change we all want and need to see at an even faster pace.