Retail Roundup | December 2022
As a retail technology company obsessed with data, we at Tillerman are constantly looking at the trends and forecasts shaping the retail industry broadly. The start of 2022 continued to bring challenges with supply chain issues, inflation and of course Omicron having an impact, but there were bright spots as well. Heres a roundup of some of the retail stories that caught our eye this month.
December started the 2022 Holiday shopping season with a mixed bag of results. Retail Dive reported that, according to the NRF, 196.7M people shopped over the Thanksgiving Holiday which was a record high, but in store traffic shifted from Mall and Big Box stores to Beauty and Discounters. NPD cautioned that consumers planned to pair back their holiday spending and predicted an ongoing focus on promotions heading into 2023 as retailers continue to address excess inventory.
As the month closed and a major winter storm wreaked havoc across the middle of the country WWD sounded an optimistic note reporting that the Holiday Season saw retailers post a mid single digit sales increase and reported some hope that post Holiday promotional sales will increase those gains.
Inventory pressure has been a major focus during the 4th quarter and NRF had a great round up of 5 innovative AI driven solutions which will be particularly important for the apparel sector as spending in that category has slowed, a trend that is forecasted to continue according to UBS.
As we turn the page to 2023 we look with hope towards technology and innovation. The WSJ reported a new service from Amazon aimed at helping companies manage their supply chain, and Wal-Mart released a new visual search tool called TrendGetter aimed at making it easier for consumers to find what they are looking for.
We end 2022 on a positive note with Unilever using AI to find ways to improve their formulations to solve for things like sustainability and help make their products more eco-friendly, and RetailBrew offering a run-down of Web3 which represents an uncharted opportunity for an industry that needs to evolve and find new avenues for growth.
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