Retail and Consumption

It is often said that we live in a consumer society. This does not just mean that we buy things regularly but also that consumption is an integral part of our daily lives. We have learned to think of ourselves as consumers, rather than citizens, in a variety of situations. We are not only consumers of clothes and food but also of healthcare, wellness, and education. And we expect to be treated as such, safe in the knowledge that we can take our custom elsewhere if we are not. We increasingly exercise our political preferences as consumers, actively choosing to buy from producers whose views align with our own on topics such as environmental sustainability, human rights, privacy, and personal autonomy, and boycotting those who do not.

Against this backdrop, retail organisations hold a strategically important position, not least because of the space they occupy between producers and consumers. Retailers have a key role in steering consumption and mediating choice. They have the power to shape conversations about socially important issues, such as sustainability, and can nudge consumers to make better choices. They can also pressure producers to provide alternative (more sustainable) products. Retail’s strategic importance also stems from its potential to shape our ways of being in the physical and digital worlds. Our physical world and the ways we move through it are often defined by the position and placement of stores (think about high streets and the ways in which roads, pedestrian streets, and public transport is designed around them), and/or the ways in which goods move from manufacturer to retailer to consumers (motorways, ports, and shopping malls) have all shaped our physical environments. It is a similar story in the digital world. Retail shapes the way online spaces, from social media to the metaverse, look and feel and how we interact in them (for example, the ways in which we have learned to quickly appraise and ignore unwanted advertisements with the flick of a thumb). Here, again, retail platforms are mediators, bringing technological innovations, such as new digital payment solutions, to huge numbers of users in a relatively short space of time.

It is clear that retail and consumption are intertwined in complex ways, both symbiotic and antagonistic. Despite this, they have often been studied in different ways by separate groups of researchers rather than being seen as integrated. In this book, we seek to rectify this by exploring the ways in which three different consumption trends will transform the retail industry.

Ours is not the first book to do this. In 1996, Wrigley and Loew’s book on retailing, consumption, and capital positioned itself at the nexus of consumption and retail and, more recently, Stephens (2013) shed light on this topic with his book on the revival of retail in the consumer age. Since these books were published, much has happened in the fields of retail and consumption. New technologies have changed the ways in which consumers and retailers interact, causing physical stores to close and new types of stores to emerge (both online and offline). Sustainability has become a mainstream debate in consumption and retail research and practice. And, in the wake of a global pandemic, ideas about human and non-human well-being have become salient for both retailers and consumers. Meanwhile, customer experience continues to be an extremely important aspect of retail management, even if the kinds of experiences customers need and want are changing. Our book will directly address these consumption trends, through a variety of lenses, and explore how they will transform retail in the future.

Major Trends in Retail and Consumption

The retail industry is constantly changing and, as outlined above, it has undergone several changes in the last few decades. Looking more closely at these changes, we can see how they are shaped by three major trends, namely technology, sustainability, and consumer well-being. All these trends have a great impact on retail today, and will continue to shape the future of retail. In the remainder of this book, each of these consumption trends will be examined in a separate section, with specific developments and challenges tackled in specific chapters. In addition, this book also includes a section focusing on customer experience. While a focus on experiences may not be seen as a new movement in retail, the trends explored in this book—technology, sustainability and well-being—all have a profound impact on how future retail experiences will be formed and constituted. As such, this book also includes a fourth section where attention is directed particularly to customer experiences and how current trends in retail and consumption may contribute in transforming them. Although the book’s chapters are divided into four different sections, these should not be seen as isolated from one another or moving in separate directions. Rather technology, sustainability, consumer well-being and customer experience are intertwined and impact each other in multiple ways.

In the following sections, we provide an overview of the book and its main content, by introducing and discussing each of the major themes that this book concerns. In doing so we also sketch out the structure and content for each chapter, illustrating the subjects and queries discussed by the contributing authors.

Technology

Technological developments have a great impact on how retail operates (Pantano, 2020). Recent decades have seen major shifts in how retailers use and work with technologies such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence, smartphone apps, social media shopping, and digital in-store services.

A number of scholars have contributed to our understanding of the ways in which digitalization changes the retail landscape, how it transforms retail offerings and services, as well as how and when consumers shop (e.g. Hagberg et al., 2016; Pantano, 2020; Fuentes & Svingstedt, 2017; Vannucci &Pantano, 2020). Smartphones are one example of how technology can radically change customer experience and behaviour in both online and in-store retail spaces (e.g. Pantano & Priporas, 2016; Grewal et al., 2018). Digital signage is another example. As we look further into the future, advances in machine learning (e.g. Pizzi et al., 2021; Mahmoud et al., 2020), bodily modifications and new credit systems seem set to inspire further retail transformations. Despite a growing body of knowledge within this field, there is no sign of weakening interest in this subject. On the contrary, in recent work, scholars refer to digitalization as a crucial topic for further investigations, raising questions about how retailing may be shaped by AI in the future (Guha et al., 2021), or how retail digitalization will continue to affect retail offerings and managerial actions (Grewal et al., 2021).

In this book, Hassen and Akponah discuss how mobile technologies, and in this case, social platforms such as ‘Vinted’, ‘Too Good To Go’, and ‘Think Dirty’, can promote sustainable consumption practices. They view these practices as collaborative sustainable consumption practices, and explain what drives these types of actions and how they will be meaningful for the future. Their chapter contributes to discussions about how technology can be a facilitator in moving towards a more sustainable consumer society.

In their chapter, Velasco and Marriott develop a conceptual model to explain how smart signage is dynamic in nature and thus can be utilised to create two-way communication in a retail context. They discuss how smart signage can build consumer-product relationships and offer insights into human-computer interaction and the role of consumer privacy.

Shahriar explores how technological advances, in this case the metaverse, will shape the future of consumption and marketing and what implications this will have on society. He writes about retailers’ marketing work in the metaverse, and discusses how the retailers of the future might work to navigate what he terms a hybrid phygital future.

Related to consumer privacy, Larsson and Haresamudram discuss consumer trust in retail personalisation in the context of data-collection and artificial intelligence (AI). The authors begin their chapter by sketching a scenario in the near future in which a consumer is looking to buy groceries for dinner and ends up paying at an automated check-out using computer vision and facial recognition. Against this backdrop, Larsson and Haresamudram problematize issues such as consumers’ loss of control over data, transparency in pricing, and decision making in automated retail environments characterised by an imbalance of information between parties.

Relja, Zhao and Ward explain how ‘Buy-Now-Pay-Later’ (BNPL) services are changing relationships between consumers, credit providers and retailers. The authors provide a detailed account of the symbiotic dealings between these parties, and discuss the benefits and risks at play. While the retailer may no longer be the strongest party in the relationship, consumers are in the weakest position, facing potentially numerous negative outcomes. Meanwhile, BNPL-services are increasing in power.

This section closes with a short reflection written by Rickard Sandahl, CEO of Mylla.se, a digital marketplace that uses detailed data from the internet of things to align producer availability with consumer needs. Sandahl highlights how the technology and sustainability trends are heavily interlinked and how retailers are already making use of digital tools and data to make better retail systems.

Sustainability

The current modes and levels of consumption, in which retail is responsible for selling high volumes of products and services to consumers, create problems for society and for the natural environment, especially in countries where retail products are sourced and disposed of. Discussions about the negative social, ethical, and environmental consequences of excessive consumption often point to retailers as complicit in encouraging ecological degradation, resource depletion, and the climate emergency. It is clear that questions of sustainability can no longer be ignored by retailers and these questions will become even more important in the future. To stay relevant for consumers, retailers need to figure out how to engage in actions that will move consumption in a more sustainable direction. This is not without its challenges.

Research has shown that consumers are already demanding that retailers shift towards more sustainable business models (Elg et al., 2021; Jansson, 2018) and that their operations become more transparent (James & Montgomery, 2017; Wulff, 2019; Jestratijevic et al., 2022). Retailers need to respond to these changing demands, as well as the opportunities they create. In the future new business models that make use of, for example, digital platforms to enable consumers to eat more vegetarian food (e.g. Samsioe & Fuentes, 2022) or aim to slow down consumption by prolonging the life of fashion items through the use of care services (e.g. Goldsworthy et al., 2018) may provide opportunities to move towards more sustainable consumption.

In their description of a packaging-free future, Ağlargöz and Ağlargöz emphasise that what we think of as normal retail is by no means our only choice. It is just what we have become accustomed to. As more sustainable alternatives like packaging-free retailing emerge, retailers can adopt and normalise them, moving them from niche to mainstream where they can coexist with, and perhaps eventually replace, less sustainable options.

Like Ağlargöz and Ağlargöz, Fredriksson, Merkel and Säwe also highlight the strategically important role that retailers play as intermediaries when it comes to sustainability. “Retail has a crucial function as a mediator of sustainable food alternatives,” they explain. Until now, they argue, the innovative ability of retailing and the food sector has primarily been product- and technology-oriented, focusing less often on consumer understanding. But shaping the conversations around sustainable food alternatives will be crucial if they are to be accepted by the public.

Sutinen and Närvänen also take up the idea of retailers’ power to shape sustainability discussions. They show that retailers will need to be brave if they are to shape public discourse in a way that is not only about greenwashing or underscoring their own achievements. When it comes to food waste, they explain, few retailers have taken the bold decisions that are needed to reduce food waste, such as reducing their assortment or sharing their customer data with the food industry to better align supply and demand. (There are clear overlaps here with Rickard Sandahl’s chapter on using data to reduce food waste.)

In his chapter, Shih astutely reminds us that people do not care about sustainability in the same way all over the world. He points out that retailers are not the only ones that can nudge consumers towards more sustainable choices. Indeed, there are other institutional and individual factors that lead to more or less sustainable consumption.

Lehner, Richter, and Mont explore the idea that an increase in consumption of virtual/digital goods (and a corresponding decrease in consumption of physical/analogue goods) might lead to a more sustainable future. They envision a world in which needs (e.g. getting from A-B) are satisfied by physical goods while wants (e.g. conspicuous consumption of a flashy branded car) are created and satisfied virtually. They point out that, if “consumers can be convinced that virtual reality’s value proposition is equivalent to or better than the status quo, the results for economic activity could be profound.”

In her chapter, Wulff builds on the idea of needs by reminding us that consumer desire can be unending. Hence, clothing retailers that try to forecast supply to match demand risk fuelling the rampant overproduction and overconsumption that the industry is said to be driving. “To build a more sustainable business we need to reverse the arguments and take instead supply as the starting point”, she argues.

In their reflection, Kevin Gelsi and Sandya Lang from Nudie Jeans Co go further and argue that extending the life of existing clothing, by repairing it, is a better way to make the fashion retail industry sustainable. Nudie, they argue, is creating tomorrow’s vintage, not tomorrow’s landfills.

Consumer Well-Being

While ideas about physical and mental well-being have long been intertwined with consumption, consumer well-being is now, increasingly, having an effect on retail offerings. Consumer well-being is a diffuse concept that includes ideas about slowing down and practising mindfulness and care for the self and others. In connection with the sustainability trend, many consumers are looking for alternative ways of consuming. Slow consumption of all kinds—e.g. slow fashion or slow food—and anti-consumption trends, such as minimalism, offer consumers blueprints for buying less and feeling better. Their promise is that reducing the pace and/or the quantity of our consumption will reduce stress on the environment and the consumer. Previous research has shown that sustainable modes of consumption may be a way for consumers to enhance well-being, for themselves and for their relevant others (e.g. Bly et al., 2015; Ritch & Brownlie, 2016). An increased concern for both the planet and the well-being of its inhabitants is also seen in new forms of food consumption and practices for reducing food waste (e.g. Lehtokunnas et al., 2022; Janssen, 2018).

The COVID-19 pandemic stimulated new ways of thinking about consumer well-being. During the pandemic, consumers’ health and safety concerns altered their ways of relating to and evaluating retail environments (e.g. Fuentes et al., 2022; Yang et al., 2021; Hultman & Egan-Wyer, 2022). It remains to be seen what long-term effects the pandemic will have on retail but it has already prompted more widespread adoption of technological innovations, such as contactless payment (Rehncrona, 2022) and online shopping (Verhoef et al., 2022). Technological innovations often raise questions regarding consumer well-being, especially in relation to ethics and privacy. In today’s digitised retail environments, retailers have access to huge amounts of consumer data and numerous opportunities to use it. Research has shown that, while consumer data can be used to improve retail services and consumer well-being, data sharing can also be associated with perceived risks and discomfort (Pallant et al., 2022; Saarijärvi et al., 2015).

The chapters we have gathered in this section highlight different but important aspects of the consumer well-being trend. In their discussions, consumer well-being often overlaps with other consumption trends, providing insights into how new technologies and new modes of consumption will change consumers’ relationships with retailing as well as with themselves.

Minina Jeunemaître brings together some of the major themes of this book in her chapter by discussing how retailers’ use of online channels contributes to transforming “the service ecosystem” within the market for mental health services. She describes how retailers can use new, online solutions to refine their service offerings and provide customer value in more personalised ways. For instance, she directs our attention to questions of how services provided by artificial intelligence may change our notions of how value is created and how well-being can be preserved.

New technological innovations are transforming retailing in multiple ways. Lima and Belk emphasise this when they explore the use of embodied payment technologies. In their chapter, they discuss how “biocompatible microchip implants”, which enable consumers to pay for their products using only their body, may change retailing. They also draw attention to the ethical concerns of such implants, connecting to well-being in terms of data privacy and safety. They also discuss the possible impact of this new mode of payment on consumption experiences and service settings.

Lewis and Vredenburg shed light on the relationship between consumers and brands, posing questions about how brands’ connection with social and political debates may influence consumer well-being. The authors argue that, through “brand activism” and taking a clear stance on socio-political issues, retailers can serve consumers’ self-definition processes and enhance their well-being. Against this backdrop, the authors direct our attention to the question of what will be important to future consumers and discuss both the opportunities and possible drawbacks of brand activism.

Lamarche-Beauchesne brings up another aspect of well-being by turning her attention to new trends in food consumption. Focusing on vegan consumption, she discusses how this growing trend transforms the market; offering alternative modes of consumption as well as changing established market relationships and norms. In her discussion of the vegan market, she illustrates how consumption activities can have a bearing on both individual well-being and the well-being of others.

In his reflection, Tomas de Souza, CEO of Ablemind, combines his experience from business development with a human perspective on how technology and consumption affect consumer well-being. He brings up the idea of healthwashing and argues that there is a market for healthy, sustainable consumption, where retailers and brands will need to choose sides.

Customer Experience

This section of the book differs slightly from the others. Instead of focusing on a new trend, it focuses on experience, which is an enduring favourite in both research and practice. Retail and consumption scholars have successfully illustrated that retail places allow for more than economic transactions; they are also very much about enjoyment, aesthetic, and sensorial experiences (e.g. Lehtonen & Mäenpää, 1997; Stevens et al., 2019). A common view in such work is that experiences are substantially connected with the contexts in which they take place, which naturally implies that, as technology, sustainability and consumer well-being transform retail spaces and places, consumers’ retail experiences will also take on new forms.

During the last decade or so, we have seen great changes in the types of customer experience offered by retailers. Ecommerce has expanded remarkably and many physical stores have closed (e.g. Grewal et al., 2017; Helm et al., 2018) but, new kinds of physical stores have opened, including showrooms, pop-ups, and unmanned stores (e.g. Hultman et al., 2017; Egan-Wyer et al., 2021). Consumer well-being trends, including health and safety concerns, have changed how consumers relate to and behave in retail environments (Fuentes et al., 2022; Yang et al., 2021; Hultman & Egan-Wyer, 2022). And sustainability trends have altered the kinds of stores they visit (Fredriksson et al., 2019). Digital technologies have facilitated more engaging and valuable customer experiences (Alexander & Kent, 2022; Pantano, 2016) but, yet, the personal service encounter also plays a crucial role (e.g. Bäckström & Johansson, 2017; Roozen & Ioannou Katidis, 2019).

It seems that physical and online stores will both have a place in the retail landscape of the future, but retailers can employ different strategies for engaging with consumers in different formats. Hence, finding the means for enhancing customer experiences, regardless of what channels or platforms they operate in, will be a strategically important endeavour for retailers in the future (for similar arguments, see e.g. Alexander & Blazquez Cano, 2020; Hoyer et al., 2020). The chapters in the last part of this book contribute with some important insights about how future retail experiences will be constituted and how retailers will need to develop their offerings and services to attract the customers of the future. While the experience dimension will continue to play a vital role in future retail, the ways in which experiences are constituted and seen as relevant will undoubtedly change.

In her chapter, Nilsson explores the role of physical stores in the “digital retail era”, thus providing an insight into how physical stores can handle the new challenges posed by multichannel retailing. Comparing the roles of physical and online stores, she emphasises the growing importance of “soft factors”, such as personal service and a pleasant atmosphere, in offline retail places. In addition, she argues that physical stores that cater for consumers’ quest for inspiration and local connectedness are likely to attract customers of the future.

In both Vredenburg, Bell and Polman’s chapter and Egan-Wyer, Valentin and Parsmo’s chapter, we learn that retailers may have to relate to customers’ service requirements in new ways in the future. Introducing the term “employee-to-customer improvisation”, Vredenburg et al., propose that customisation has a central part in future retail experiences. Like Nilsson, they emphasise the increased importance of personal service in retail settings. Vredenburg et al., argue that developing employees’ ability to improvise in the service encounter—that is, by altering their behaviour to meet unique customer demands—will be crucial in order for retailers to stay competitive. As the authors argue, this will require new forms of competence and training, such as interpersonal communication, balancing of autonomy and structure, and the handling of unexpected events.

Egan-Wyer, Valentin, and Parsmo shed a different light on this discussion by directing our attention to the question of when it is worth investing in a personal service encounter. In their chapter, they argue that, while many in-store customers appreciate personal service, more and more customers can also manage on their own. Following this line of argument, Egan-Wyer et al. conclude that serving the needs of tomorrow’s customers means successfully combining both personal and mechanical service (self-service technologies).

Thufvesson and Aslan argue that we need to understand both the present and the past in order to say something about the experiences of the future. By exploring the past, they suggest two “future experiential trajectories” for high streets and city centres. One accentuates the importance of modern trends while the other emphasises values that are more traditional. The authors, thus, remind us that future retail experiences may not just be about the “new, innovative, spectacular, expensive, or high-tech”, but may also be built around virtues such as sociality, diversity, and uniqueness.

René van Pelt and Ida de Wit Sandström also emphasise a return to traditional virtues in their reflection. Despite the fact that technology, sustainability, and customer well-being are changing the business of retail, they argue that much remains the same and will continue to do so. Some of the tricks to providing good customer experience, for example, are “timeless.”

Summarising Words

This book is distinctive because of the way it links future consumption trends with pragmatic actions that retailers can take to prepare in the present. It is essential reading for retail managers who want to know how future consumption trends will affect the industry, as well as students and researchers of retail and consumption who wish to better understand how these interdependent fields are linked. It has been written with this diverse audience in mind and, hence, less attention is paid to theoretical contributions than one might expect in retail and consumption journals. Alongside academic perspectives, written by leading consumption and retail researchers, you will find short reflections, written by innovative retail practitioners, in which they discuss what they are already doing to prepare for the consumption trends of the future.

Chapters can be read individually but we have gathered them into four sections. The first three sections represent the consumption trends that are transforming and will continue to transform retail in the near future: technology, sustainability, and consumer well-being. The fourth theme reminds us that, no matter what other transformations occur, and no matter what precise format it takes, the retail experience will continue to be paramount for attracting and retaining customers.