future of retail Cost pressures are driving digital investment
in stock?’ or ‘What’s in stock?’ and it would give the information. An AI agent can go multiple steps beyond that – fill in forms, do back-office tasks and all kinds of processing.” Simpson insisted: “The key point is
that retailers need to have each system and have their data clean and accessible in a way that can be used by these agents. Consumers are on to the innovation almost before the retailer, and the retailer has a lot of work to do to sort out the capabilities to turn these things on. A lot of investments are in optimising existing platforms to plug in more of these new services.” She noted: “Retail always had a fast
innovation cycle – the cycle is just getting quicker. But the speed at which retailers can absorb the changes and make the investments is a major challenge.” Businesses “are introducing AI literacy
skills, courses on AI and the information to share with it, and looking at appropriate guidelines”, according to Walton. The extent to which generative AI
will augment workers or displace them remains unclear. Simpson said: “It’s not necessarily about displacing workers but allowing staff to work in more value- adding areas. There is a growing trend of empowering almost all store associates with a device. In luxury retail, that is around one-to-one retailing and an assisted sales journey. In the mass market, there is lots of functionality around checking stock and mobile points of sale, so customers don’t have to go to a till.”
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Walton argued: “It’s worth reiterating that retail is fundamentally about the customer experience. Everything we mention sounds new and exciting, but it’s in place to meet a business challenge or consumer demand. Staff have devices to improve the customer experience. “What travel retailers should think
about is not ‘Does the latest technology solve a problem?’, but ‘What technology already exists, or do we already have, that could solve some problems?’” For example, he said: “Self-checkouts have been in
30 Travel Weekly Insight Report 2025 %
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1
What travel retailers should think about is not ‘Does the latest technology solve a problem?’, but ‘What technology already exists, or do we already have, that could solve problems?’
stores for years, but there is a pinch point when consumers take products to a changing room, choose what they want, then have to queue to pay. Just moving the point of sale solves a problem.” Retail continues to be the UK’s
single biggest employer and Walton noted: “There was huge recruitment for Christmas.” But he added: “There are some challenges – for example, how you engage and recruit young people just entering work. This is the generation most affected by Covid and not having
FIGURE 48: UK RETAIL OUTLETS: MULTIPLE & INDEPENDENT Net loss/gain in outlets
2000 4000
-12000 -10000 -8000 -6000 -4000 -2000 0
+263 +831 -601
-2,481 -4,010 -6,537 -7,648 -9,877 -10,059 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 Independents Multiples Source: Local Data Company FIGURE 49: RETAIL OUTLET CHANGES BY LOCATION, 2019-23 Net change in retail outlets 20
0% 0.4%
-0.4% -1.3%
-1.7% -2.2% -2.6%
-2.8%
-3.5% -3.7%
-5.4% 2019 2020 Retail park 2021 2022 High street 2023 -1.2% 0.4%
-1.3% -1.3%
15 % 10 7.9% 8.3% 5 2019 2020 2021 2021 2022 2022 2023 2023 H1 H1 Shopping centre Source: Local Data Company H1 H2 H1 H2 H1 H2 Vacancy rate by location type 19.4% 19% 19% 18% 17.8% 18%
14.2% 14.3% 14.5% 14.4% 14% 14% 14% 14% 11.7% 12.4%
11.5% 11.3% 10% 9% 8% 8% -3,627 -4,943 -1,483 -1,013 -1,521 -1,442 -2,827 +2,157 +262
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