Julian David
CEO, techUK
Digital is the future of retail and as we move on from the pandemic, we must think more about the role tech and digital can play in the future of our high streets.
Digital tech is now as essential to retail as good product placement, signage and friendly staff. From checking the opening hours of the store online to perusing products and managing stock, customers and retailers will use digital solutions for almost every interaction in and out of the store. The impact of the pandemic has accelerated this digital transition.
Innovative technologies
Some portray the tech sector and the retail sector as competitors and that the success of one comes at the expense of the other. That is not true. In techUK’s recent paper, Technology and the Future of the High Street, we explored the number of ways retail can use digital tech to build a new business model for the high street in the wake of the pandemic. From developing an omnichannel approach to shopping, to creating more ways for remote workers to spend their time in stores, digital tech is at the core of innovative ideas being pursued by retailers.
Improving businesses and communities
These changes won’t happen on their own. The pandemic has been detrimental for retailers and support is needed to help them invest in solutions that will improve their businesses as well as help local communities. There is a role for government to provide that support as well as for the tech sector to provide the digital solutions retailers need.
If Government and industry can work together, we have the power to support the future of the UK’s retail sector.
Finding the next steps
To start with, expanding the remit of the Government’s ‘Help to Grow: Digital’ Scheme and allowing the Towns Fund and National Infrastructure Bank to support investment in digital services and infrastructure will incentivise this transformation of the high street.
The Government should also accelerate its review of business rates to give stores certainty over the future rates regime and drop plans for an online sales tax which would only penalise retailers who want to digitise, as well as see extra costs passed on to consumers.
If Government and industry can work together, we have the power to support the future of the UK’s retail sector.
techUK is collecting thoughts and concerns of the technology industry to further digitise the high street to support its recovery. Interested parties should contact us through techuk.org.