Catching up with Anusha Coutiganne of Vogue Business last week, we started talking about how the best retailers are always just a little ahead of their time. Gordon Selfridge, Jack Cohen and Ingvar Kamprad didn’t merely extrapolate the latest trends, they saw the glimmer of a compelling future and made it a reality for their customers.
What would they see, if they looked today? Little is certain in this era of flux, but retail boards can at least imagine the way things might change. By doing so, they give themselves the best chance of being the ones directing the future, rather than chasing after it. The following is a result of our conversation.
1. Department stores make a comeback
Department stores seemed destined for extinction a few years ago, with Woolworths, BHS and Debenhams unable to fend off low-cost digital disruptors. The perceived conquerors were online platforms.
This may be changing, with rising costs of online customer acquisition pushing even digitally native brands like Gymshark and Glossier into multichannel. Yet high property and wage costs make opening standalone stores daunting for smaller brands.
Department stores are perfectly placed to fill this gap, by returning to their roots as places of surprise and delight, where customers can discover new products and brands can progressively grow exposure from pop-ups through to larger concessions.
The challenge will be enticing younger customers, who lack familiarity with and nostalgia for the department store model.
2. No more cheap food
While the Ukraine war has highlighted the importance of national food security, farmers are more concerned with their own financial and environmental sustainability.
Vertically integrated models, where farms grow and sell their own food, are gaining traction. So too is regenerative farming, where crop rotation and good old fashioned manure take the place of industrial fertilisers. Particularly when combined, as per Andy Cato’s Wildfarmed (now stocked in Waitrose), these are turning commodity suppliers into marketable brands.
If this de-industrialisation of farming continues, prices will rise, but arguably food will become more nutritious and sustainable in every sense of the word.
3. Resale and rentals deliver “Peak Stuff”
The high street proliferation of vintage clothing and used vinyl testifies to changing attitudes about ownership among Gens Z and Alpha, driven by affordability, sustainability and vicarious nostalgia for a simpler time.
Traditional retailers have duly engaged with resale and rental, from Reselfridges and John Lewis Rental through to Levi SecondHand and platforms like Eshita Kabra’s By Rotation and Victoria Prew’s HURR.
It works best for high-cost, infrequent-use items like designer fashion and DIY products: see the locker-based Library of Things, which allows Londoners to rent things like carpet shampooers and power drills.
The key questions are whether rental and resale platforms can scale while staying sustainable, and whether younger generations will retain their appetite for pre-loved products as they age.
4. Print makes a comeback as digital trust frays
It’s hard to capture attention in today’s crowded digital space, when the next distraction is only half a doom-scroll away. It’s also hard to build trust in an age of misinformation.
This is pushing brands back to traditional media channels like magazines, catalogues and billboards. The idea: print establishes credibility and creates lingering emotional connection.
Look at British Vogue, which now has a higher circulation than its pre-2007 peak. Digital isn’t going away, but it seems we underestimated the staying power of analogue media.
5. Near-shoring beats reshoring, but China stays top
Years of deteriorating US-China trade relations have not translated into large-scale reshoring, particularly in the UK, where manufacturing capacity is limited.
Nearshoring has been much more evident, with countries like Turkey, Bulgaria and especially Romania using their EU access and manufacturing pedigree to attract investment. The UAE is also doing surprisingly well, using its wide trading relationships and friendly tax regime to finish goods that originated further afield.
While Trump 2.0 will likely accelerate this, Chinese manufacturing will remain central without drastic policy changes: the price is too competitive and the quality is getting better.
Retailers must navigate whether the UK will be forced to change as a result of drastic policy shifts, whilst considering whether protectionism will outlast Trump’s second presidency.
6. The awkward price of advertising revenues
Retailers increasingly monetise customer relationships, whether selling data or website space for third-party ads. Amazon exemplifies this, with digital media becoming a major profit driver.
While tempting at a time when margins are under threat, I can see this strategy backfiring. Will you still trust Amazon when its searches prioritise sponsors over relevance? Will your relationship with a niche retailer sour if you think they’re exploiting your personal data or bombarding you with ads for things they don’t sell?
I’m sure it’s possible to monetise digital media carefully, but remember it’s much easier to lose trust and loyalty than to regain them.
7. The tie makes a well-deserved comeback
I suspect ties will not be making a rapid return but when I look around my train carriage, where half the commuters seem to be wearing pyjamas to work. It makes superficial sense in the WFH era, when you can do your emails from the comfort of a onesie, but I hope rising office working will restore higher standards of dress – and along with it, a greater sense of purpose.
There are some signs it’s not just me. Two of the fastest growing retailers in the country, as we found in our recent Retail Index, were more formal / smarter in their intent (Moss Bros, Me & Em and Self Portrait), suggesting rumours of the demise of formal, structured and smart attire may thankfully be exaggerated.
