Helping Brands and Retailers Manage Wholescale Change with Focus on the Customer Journey

The past few years have significantly disrupted people’s everyday lives due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19 and the impact of social movements and political unrest in many areas of the world. At the same time, many people now have the freedom to work remotely and explore new ways of living in areas that offer lower costs and the opportunity for more disposable income and spending. These changes have also impacted how consumers interact with brands and retailers. For example, more people are now shopping for groceries and consumer products online and spending more time online overall. Retail businesses, on the other hand, are struggling to adapt to supply chain strains, rising costs, labor shortages, and an increased focus on environmental and social issues.

Traditional retailers are also faced with growing competition that often has a significant advantage of having a digital-first mindset from inception. In the UK, more than 725,000 businesses were formed in 2020, with retail seeing the largest increase. Other new competitors to retailers are consumer brand manufacturers who increasingly see the direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales channel as an important method of gathering consumer insight to help defend market share and innovate products to regain momentum. These brands are not afraid to invest heavily to ensure success in their D2C operations.

Retailers must take urgent action to remain visible and relevant to customers and build the internal competencies needed to adapt and thrive.

To read the full article, visit: https://retailtechnologyinsider.com/helping-brands-and-retailers-manage-wholescale-change-with-focus-on-the-customer-journey/

To read part two of the article, visit: Unified and Composable Commerce Solves Challenges of Customer Journey for Today’s Retailers | EPAM

Read Part One and Part Two of the Consumers UnMasked report.