Arnaud Gallet
Retail Business Unit Director, Comexposium
Unified commerce and AI will define retail in 2025, a potentially definitive year amid economic challenges and a new wave of technology.
Despite predictions of a delivery-dominated future, retail in 2025 thrives on unified commerce, blending physical and digital channels, while AI’s growing role signals another pivotal shift ahead.
Visitor footfall to malls and stores
In 2023, US ecommerce represented 22% of total retail sales, according to Department of Commerce data, up from 21.2% in 2022. Although ecommerce sales growth is outpacing in-store growth, the reality is that nearly eight out of every 10 consumer dollars, euros and pounds are still spent in-store.
Online shopping is nibbling away at store sales. By 2029, Forrester expects US total retail sales to reach $6 trillion, with online retail sales at $1.8 trillion, representing online retail penetration of 29%.
Retail veteran Steve Sadove says: “The idea that physical retail is dead and has become a digital play is incorrect. Customers want the physical shopping experience.”
Online shopping is nibbling
away at store sales.
Returns to store critical
The critical question for retailers is how they balance investment and how they integrate the channels. In particular, retailers need to encourage online returns to be made in-store because when they do, customers then tend to spend more than the original purchase value.
“This is a critical year in the blending of physical, digital and new technology,” says Arnaud Gallet, Retail Business Unit Director at NRF Big Show Europe organiser Comexposium. “The retailers that thrive will be those who embrace everything from in-store customer service to new AI delivery and make it all feel part of one brand.”
Is 2025 the year of AI?
Indeed, the next digital challenge is AI. The word from the annual NRF Big Show in New York at the start of the year was that 2025 is the year retailers need to start delivering AI-led projects rather than simply testing and learning. By the time NRF Big Show Europe comes to Paris in September, we should know just how far the retail world has come at delivering AI and unified commerce.
