Latest / The Retail Podcast / Top 5 Digital Retail Trends 2025: Michelle Evan, Euromonitor

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Top 5 Digital Retail Trends 2025: Michelle Evan, Euromonitor · The Retail Podcast

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  Zara and H&M are facing a lot of competition from the likes of
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  SHE and and to some degree both are trying to elevate who they
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  are and what their position is to justify their perhaps higher
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  cost. Hello, welcome to the Retail
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  podcast. Now for some of you who are
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  savvy out there and have been to a few conferences across the
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  globe, you'll recognise my next guest, Michelle Evans from
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  Euromonitor is the global read. Sorry, global would be for
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  retail insights. She was also at NRF doing the US
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  grocery trends, so we're very fortunate to have her.
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  I'm, I'm a massive fan of Michelle and Urine monitor.
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  I really enjoy the way that they distil these major trends, major
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  data elements. I've I've seen Michelle, I think
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  over two years now at different conferences at NRA Shop Talk and
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  each time I'm left delighted. Michelle, welcome to the show.
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  And thank you. Thank you for having me on.
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  That's OK. So I believe in, in, in
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  imminently you're going to be releasing your top five digital
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  trends for 2025 and you're going to be able to maybe just take us
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  through through that. Yeah, yeah.
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  So this is work we've done annually.
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  I think this is our 9th year. So our digital shopper trends
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  look at, you know how our most digitally savvy shoppers are
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  changing and, and what to expect in the year ahead.
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  So yeah, I'm happy to to talk through some of them with you.
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  Could you just give us a little heads up on you know yourself
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  and your own monitor? Yeah.
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  So for those maybe not familiar with your monitor, we're a
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  global market intelligence agency.
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  So we're based out of London, I'm out of our Chicago office
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  and we help clients around the world with their growth
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  strategies. We do research across the number
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  of industries in particular I'm in our, you know, retail
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  ecommerce type area. So I've managed insights and in
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  our client engagements in that realm.
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  So I've been at the company it's you know, this year will be 15
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  years and have been in in this space for a while helped to
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  launch originally our digital shopper.
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  We do have a product called digital shopper that's coming up
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  on I think 9 years since we've launched that.
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  So that was early days on mobile was, you know, starting to
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  change how consumers shop. So I've been focused on that and
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  then obviously picked up for this wider repel vantage point
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  along the way. And that's why I spoke about
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  grocery trends of the recent interrupt show.
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  What are the top five digital trends that you're seeing for
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  2025? Yeah, happy to talk through some
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  of them. So I think you know, every year
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  when we do this, there's some some overarching trends are
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  overarching themes, I guess is the right word that come to
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  mind. So in recent years, things like
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  greater sophistication of E com and social media, social media
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  is playing a big role in our report this year.
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  One of them is around the idea of brands and retailers having
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  to rebuild trust with consumers. So this is, you know, if you
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  think about social media when it started, you know, consumers
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  became a bit savvy, realised, you know, brands and retailers
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  may not, you know, they're, they're putting out messages and
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  maybe I should trust or not trust.
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  And then influencers came along and, and then they were
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  obviously selling, you know, sponsorships against against
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  themselves as well. So increasingly consumers will
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  become, you know, a bit more wary when it when they're
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  interacting in that medium. So what we're talking about here
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  is more so the rise of, you know, micro nano influencers and
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  the role that that they play in, you know, building that trust
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  with consumers. Obviously they tend to be, you
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  know, a bit more community driven, Maybe they're actually
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  in your community or maybe they're, you know, in a
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  community, you know, that that more centred around interest,
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  but someone that you can trust to guide you to to products and
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  services. And so one of the other trends
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  that we're looking at, I would say speaks more to it.
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  It's also social related, you know, consumers or clearly on
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  social media or clearly online more and on social media more.
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  So it's just the place that they're interacting and
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  naturally, you know, looking maybe to shop.
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  So this trend looks at, you know, the the shopification of
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  social media, the idea of making these platforms easier to shop.
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  So we're seeing, you know, these operators, you know, bring in
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  these different types of new functionality to make it easier
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  to, you know, execute the purchase right online.
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  So one of the ones I think about is Instagram and they pushed in
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  the last year, you know, making retailers and brands stay within
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  Instagram to sell the product. So you know, if, if it is a
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  brand or a retailer pushing something and you see the video,
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  you know, as you click on it, you'll see the, the buy now
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  button and you're taken through through that experience.
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  So it's, it's keeping them within the platform.
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  Clearly that means more commissions for the, for the
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  platform themselves. And then, you know, there's
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  other things like YouTube has done some different efforts when
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  it comes to an affiliate programme where they're making
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  it easier to tag things within videos, you know, to to execute
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  said purchase. And we're also seeing different
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  partnerships, like there was a partnership between Instacart
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  and Google Ads. Now they've added YouTube as
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  well. So it's connecting those dots,
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  you know, to make it easier for consumers to execute on those
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  platforms. And next one I can talk about
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  there's there is a threat of social in this one, but this one
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  is tilted more towards the medium that you connect with
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  consumers. So specifically it's about the
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  rise of sort of the, the video driven type of connections.
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  So you know it, it plays out in different ways.
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  So it could be shoppable video, it could be live streams,
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  obviously they could be hosted on social media, but also it
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  goes beyond that because they could be on retailer sites and
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  brand sites and whatnot. So this trend is, it's based on
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  the notion that when we think about different medians meeting
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  medians, mediums of consumers obviously engage more when it
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  comes to video, you know, that's deemed more engaging than words
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  or or photos or whatnot. And in our data, consumers
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  report streaming videos at least weekly of 71% of the population.
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  So, you know, this is an activity they do frequently and
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  this is, you know, becoming more powerful, more impactful, you
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  know, in the retail and in e-commerce sphere where we're
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  seeing, you know, retailers, brands, social media operators
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  leveraging this more fully. I think of an example, obviously
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  I'm in the US and one of the examples I think about a lot,
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  Amazon is clearly doing different things in this where
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  they have the Amazon Live programme, you know, the live
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  streaming. Obviously, they haven't found
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  the success like an Alibaba has because of our different
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  cultures. They also launched what they
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  call a shoppable channel called Fast on Prime Video.
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  So it's more of a throwback to the QVC home shopping type of
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  experiences that Americans would be more familiar with.
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  And then, you know, another example from even Amazon is, you
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  know, we have our NFL and they have been broadcasting during
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  the regular season in games on Thursday night on Amazon Prime
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  and during the commercials, they're all shoppable videos.
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  So it was a really interesting experience.
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  Obviously a different type of experience and watching the NFL
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  on a CBS or NBC or something like that.
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  Just because, you know, the commercialization, the
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  commercials that are put to you as a consumer, you know, these
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  are more interactive. You know, they're showing you
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  products. There's AQR code, you scan the
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  QR code, it's immediately going to the product page for Amazon.
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  It's about that creating that more immersive experience
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  online. Really there's benefits of
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  shopping online, but there's there's something you miss
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  versus in store shopping. So, you know, I think it's
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  really about tapping into that, you know, more immersive, more
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  dynamic type of experience. So, yeah, video LED, whether
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  it's, you know, a recorded video that, you know, they've now made
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  shoppable or if it's live streaming.
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  Certainly live streaming has been fairly strong coming out of
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  China, you know, five years ago really.
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  But it's been slower in the West, But we're seeing more and
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  more traction around that kind of idea.
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  So we really wanted to highlight, you know, the
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  importance of this medium and how it's being leveraged to
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  connect with shoppers. It feels like one of those music
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  countdowns. And on to #4.
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  And this one shifts gears. It's there's no real social
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  element. I think it's one of the more,
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  it's one of the more interesting ones to me.
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  And this is where we speak about these low cost platforms that
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  are really gaining traction. So obviously this ties into, you
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  know, the the cost of living crisis that consumers continue
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  to navigate and, and seeking out budget friendly options.
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  And over the last, this is the third year, we've had a trend
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  that related to this budget crisis and consumers, you know,
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  using digital tools to find deals, root out the best deals,
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  even, you know, finding dupes, that kind of thing, how they
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  might use digital platforms. But this one, you know, goes to
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  the idea of these these players that have rose to prominence.
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  You know, we think some of that obviously it's, you know, I
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  think partially driven from this budget mindset, but you also
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  have consumers that have become more comfortable shopping
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  online. For some consumers, you know,
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  they've been doing this for 2025 years, maybe some are newer to
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  the game. And you know, I think in the
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  early days when some of these platforms came out of China
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  several years ago, there was concerns about the quality of
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  the products. But obviously we're seeing
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  consumers, you know, more comfortable with ordering from
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  some of these, we call them Chinese affiliated websites.
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  Obviously some of them have shifted where their headquarters
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  are to to establish that or make that disconnection, I suppose.
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  But yeah, they're, you know, clearly players like Timu have
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  have rose to prominence of Xi'an TikTok shop.
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  And then you do have others, you know, other established players.
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  Marketplaces. Aliexpress.
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  Yeah, yeah, long established, but I'm thinking even like an
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  Amazon opening their Amazon Hall launching mat and no.
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  Congee are absolutely yes. Yeah.
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  And then you have a player like Zalando that has, you know, an
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  off price platform as well called Lounge where it has
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  heavily discounted products. So, you know, players, you know,
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  obviously Amazon is somewhat, I think more, more mirroring what
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  these other players are doing. 1 like Zalando obviously has a
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  thread, a platform that they're looking to do.
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  But then you also have other players like we talked about H&M
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  on our report from the standpoint that you know is Zara
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  and H&M are facing a lot of competition from the likes of
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  Sheen and and you know, fast fashion.
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  And really both Zara and H&M have dug their heels in and
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  tried to sort of adjust their messaging to consumers.
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  So you know, Zara has made a lot of store upgrades, H&M is
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  starting to do that. And to some degree both are
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  trying to elevate who they are and what their position is to
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  justify their their perhaps higher cost versus shooting
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  products. Yeah, I've heard that.
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  I heard that someone at one of the keynote NRF was talking
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  about how actually it was the lady, the CEO of Rent the
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  Runway. She was the one talking about
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  how Mango Zara have all you know, their, their quality of
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  their garments are getting better because they they have to
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  differentiate in, in a really competitive market.
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  OK, I I hope I don't sound like a radio disc jockey.
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  And in a #5 we have. Yeah, of course, no trends list
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  is complete without a mention of AI.
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  So last year we did look at Jen AI and how it was coming into
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  retail in different ways, you know, as one of the technologies
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  that it was creating a more more immersive is coming to mind is
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  that's not the right word that I'm thinking of a more intuitive
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  was what we call intuitive e-commerce, a more intuitive
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  experience. So we're taking a look at Jenny
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  I again this year is specifically the agents and
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  those type of developments. Obviously, you know, the agents
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  and theory should help with creating a more sort of like
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  complete experience and connecting the dots across, you
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  know, different operations and such and you know, have a
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  potential to to really have an impact in retail experiences.
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  I got you. What what stands out for you in
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  terms of the the five trends? What was the what was the thing
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  that surprised you about it? Yeah, I think this year I would
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  say we leaned in harder on social media than we have in
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  past. In past we might have, I would
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  say we would definitely have one, maybe two that touched on
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  social. So I think it it likely just
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  speaks the fact that social media is playing a more
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  prominent role in in e-commerce type of transactions.
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  Obviously it's, you know, really the cornerstone of how, you
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  know, brands and retailers connect with their shoppers.
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  So so that being one of them. So we've just had that
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  unfortunately small little technical problem where we've
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  lost the image from Michelle, but she's still there.
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  So Michelle, with that, I'd like to say thank you.
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  Thank you for sharing those digital trends with us and look
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  forward to seeing you hopefully at one of the major conferences.
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  Yeah. Thank you.
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  It's been great to share these with your audience and
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  appreciate the conversation and look forward to connecting with
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  Person in 2025.