COMMENT When Covid-19 took hold in March 2020, the national lockdown forced non-essential retail to close, impacting millions of workers and thousands of businesses across the country. It’s been estimated the pandemic has cost the UK economy more than £250bn, and the ONS reports the total volume of retail sales in Britain fell by 1.9% in 2020 compared with 2019 – the largest fall since records began.
However, in the face of this unprecedented situation, the industry adapted and rose to meet the new needs of changed consumer shopping habits. Consumers required different shopping experiences, they reprioritised their purchasing, they wanted safety assurances. But they still wanted to shop. Yes, the pandemic has created challenges, but it’s also launched a revolution of retail, reframing and evolving the purpose of the store.
To understand what this could mean for retail, we launched the Westfield: how we shop – what’s changed report, polling 2,000 UK shoppers and 500 retailers. It focuses on how shopping and leisure habits have changed over the past year. It revealed how retail spaces will need to adapt in what is set to be a new era of experience and technology-enhanced retail, with community at its heart.
The importance of community has been elevated, with 96% of retailers considering introducing community initiatives in the next 18 months and 52% of shoppers set to shop more locally than they did pre-pandemic. Our centres play a vital role as a neighbourhood hub, most recently launching blood and plasma donation units to serve local BAME residents and Covid-19 vaccination sites for east and west London. Health and mindfulness – a market said to be worth up to £40bn per month in the UK – features prominently, with 78% of consumers interested in in-store health experiences and innovations, up by 20% from last year. DNA is also set to be part of the future currency of retail experiences, with almost half (49%) of British millennials happy to share theirs for a more personalised and impactful shopping experience.
Although online shopping has certainly grown over the past 12 months, people will seek out real life experiences and return to stores now that they have the choice again. The report revealed sustainability concerns have increased around online shopping, with 57% of consumers now more considerate of online purchases due to factors such as excessive packaging.
Consumers crave physical experiences, but within a more tech-led environment. A fifth of UK shoppers want in-store tech, such as AR, to “try on” clothes, automated sales robot assistants and contactless stores. Westfield London welcomes Situ this summer, a new integrated concept allowing shoppers to trial and experience products before purchasing direct from the manufacturer via QR code.
The closure of many high street names and large department stores requires a reinvention of these spaces, creating interesting partnerships and unique one-off experiences. The first ever Harrods Outlet pop-up last year, and our plans to transform department store space to workspace, are just some examples of how this can be done.
We recognise that the retail industry has a challenging time ahead and we’re focused on leading the transformation required to ensure Westfield London and Westfield Stratford City retain their positions as the two best shopping destinations in Europe.
To do that, we’ll continue to refresh and rejuvenate the physical shopping experience, creating stores of the future that fuse the best of the physical and digital worlds, integrating the personalisation and data intelligence of online, with the emotional connections of offline, to enhance customer relationships and serve local communities. Innovation and differentiation are at the heart of this.
So while the year ahead won’t be easy, we believe in the future of our destinations and in our need as human beings to interact in physical space. As non-essential retail opens once again, we look forward to welcoming visitors back and suspect that most people are chomping at the bit to get out of their homes and enjoy some good old-fashioned retail therapy.
Scott Parsons is chief operating officer UK at Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield
