Vision 2025 update

Retail Perspectives Report

Transition to a new age

The retail sector continuously faces new global challenges and technologies that disrupt traditional processes. The future of retail will be move towards being truly regenerative, personal and digitally influenced.

In this Retail Perspectives report, OvN examines how being a part of society, circularity, automation and AI, and a focus on wellbeing will have an effect on retail experiences. A 2023 Accenture study found that 95% of business executives believed their customers are changing “faster than their businesses”. Customers increasingly desire to contribute to self-improvement and society in a positive manner. The growing younger population are expected to play a more active role in addressing global issues and shaping the world in the years to come.

In times of uncertainty, there is no business as usual. The future of retail will adopt symbiotic consumer-brand relationships, where brand platforms can amplify user engagement in tech-powered activities (music fandoms, social media filters, products exclusive to a platform). Retailers can begin to offer seamless omnichannel experiences for next-generation technology and flexible shopping choices. Building trust with the audience is equally important. Being transparent across multiple essential topics, such as digital privacy and climate, is relevant for consumer choices from clothing to cultural representation.

You can download the PDF of the report here

Banner, Happenstance by Emily Forgot, during London Design Festival

Right, OX Rotterdam

Content

1/A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP

Part of society

Retail is a microcosm of society. To keep up with the sector's innovation rate, new human skills will have to be developed. The nature of work is changing in itself, but the value of human empathy and communication are vital to hold onto to survive challenging times. The next generation of shoppers also seek these qualities in a brand, providing a sense of understanding and connection with neighbourhood cultures. Local designers have the upper hand by being part of the ‘in-group’ and paying respect to the materials and symbols of the landscape.

In today’s dynamic and socially conscious marketplace, brands must navigate with a clear and meaningful purpose. Strategic and imperative actions will allow brands to forge holistic connections and leave a lasting impression on their audiences.

A part of crafting a compelling story is to invite visitors and collaborators and open up the brand’s journey. Incorporating activities, workshops, or experiences will help to develop an immersive call-to-action where a symbiotic relationship can be formed between impactful values and local or global audiences.

Right, Rare Mags, Birmingham UK

DIVERSIFIED LOCALIZATION

Mixed use & events

Carmen Amsterdam is a shop, cafe and guesthouse. The range of products is a mix of self-designed and curated personal favourites. They host regular pop-ups where they invite guest chefs. Every Sunday, a movie is selected by the team, providing an intimate cinematic experience.

Collectives & locality

Emerging creatives come together for experimental forms of micro-retail. Atelier100 is an example of this, as an incubator for funding upcoming designers, hosting workshops, and engaging with local manufacturers.

These artisan collectives craft distinctive items using locally sourced materials and sustainable manufacturing techniques, all while promoting community and supporting the local economy.

Retail is moving away from focusing on product purchasing to being a platform for multiple uses and events. People come to the store to meet, learn, drink or eat and be in the curated world of the brand.

Instability in supply chains, geopolitical legislations, and ecological crises forces us to re-examine our local context. Supportive retail can help new designers gain the footing they need and strengthen local networks and economies.

Right, Atelier100, a collective of designers living in a radius of 100 km around London

Left, The Farm Shop by Fels, a collaborative project that brings together artists, designers and architects drawing from the knowledge, resources and practices centred around Grymsdyke Farm in Buckinghamshire.

BREWING CULTURE

Supporting artistic experiences

A logo is not as significant as it once was. Visitors and customers seek something substantial and expect brands to be a vehicle for commentary on society at large. It is not merely about the physical product anymore. Creating culture and interacting with people in non-capitalist ways is becoming more important. Art and music have always spoken to audiences authentically, allowing visitors to explore and attach a brand’s value through creating memories.

Comprehensive experiences beyond in-person or online shopping are on the rise, especially amongst younger audiences. In a 2023 ICSC survey, Gen Z shared similar responses about shopping at brick-and-mortar stores (97%) and shopping online (95%). Bringing a brand image to space and experience can be unique, tailored, and flexible. How can your brand be a hotspot for culture?

Insight

Consumers demand that brands actively participate in societal conversations and enrich culture, transcending their traditional roles as product providers.

Left , Bonne Suits partnered with gallery De Schans in its Amsterdam store

Right, Louis Vuitton ‘The Hall’ restaurant in Chengdu, Louis Vuitton pop-up bookstores in Shanghai, Diesel S/S 2024 rave and film screening

2/VALUING LIFECYCLES

Circular retail

The growth of e-commerce has caused the retail landscape to change rapidly over the past few years. This challenging economic climate has meant retailers must rethink their traditional supply chains and return to processes that reduce revenue loss and environmental impact. Solving the waste problem has become a starting point for new initiatives.

The value of product lifecycles extends across pre and post-life production. Efficient supply chain management may help to mitigate the challenges brands face, ranging from more efficient inventory management to greater visibility over partners and product lifecycles.

Allowing consumers to gain insight into the product they purchase via digital IDs for instance, can promote new methods of cultivating lasting emotional connections and driving innovation in circularity. The value and attention given to a product can be reflected alongside the value of a brand. How can you communicate the care of craftsmanship and meaningful, sustainable strategies?

Right, Coach’s circular waste brand Coachtopia

RESALE, REPAIR, REGENERATION

New systems

Resale opportunities have changed how people view ownership of products. There is a mindset shift from consuming goods to an investment of long-term ownership and selling on goods that are no longer of use. The shift gives brands the opportunity to take an active part in the reselling of their items.

Pivoting from linear to circular retail can be rewarding if led with true purpose. Numerous fashion retailers provide pre-owned or rental options, but limit their selection or keep them separate from their latest collections. This approach may constrain customer choices and fail to fully involve them in the ecosystem.

Houdini Circle, a fully-circular retail store in Stockholm, counters this by allowing the same option for all garments (buy, rent, subscribe, and more). Access to the products drives the model instead of focusing on sales only.

The stage of product development is a key moment. The company's designers ask themselves the following set of questions before any garment goes into production; Does this product deserve existence? Will it last long enough? Is it versatile enough? Will it age with beauty? Nothing added that isn't needed, right? Will it be easy to repair? Is it durable enough for our rental program? Do we have an "end-of-life" solution?

Insight

Brands are creating their own sales channels that include mainline, discounted, and secondhand products. This drives them to be more responsible by controlling their production and using resources wisely.

Left and right, The first Houdini Circle in Stockholm

TRACING MATERIAL

Making informed decisions

73% of materials in clothing worldwide end up in landfills or are incinerated (Morlet et al.). To reduce this, we need to keep clothing in circulation for longer. Developing digital ID ecosystems can mark moments in a product's lifespan, such as repair or resale, which can help to inform future owners or be recycled entirely.

Just as barcodes revolutionised businesses, digital product passports will require brands to disclose essential information like origin, production, materials, and sustainability details. Currently, the EU is considering the product passport implementation in 2026 for apparel, batteries and consumer electronics.

Allowing consumers to see the complete lifespan of an item can help current owners reconsider the care of their item, longevity, and future purchase decisions. Digital material consumer information is one way excess carbon and landfill waste can improve. Once this converges with complex virtual try-on systems, the amount of waste that can be reduced could have real impact.

The Digital Product Passports enable brands to engage with customers throughout the product’s lifecycle and connect with them on a local level, directing them to local retailers, events or mending services.

Connectivity

Patagonia uses QR codes to reduce their paper hangtags, provide information and direct customers to localized experiences and services like the United Repair mending service in Amsterdam.

Transparency

Symphony Unlocked is a collaboration between Ahluwalia, EON and Microsoft. Digital IDs provide each garment with its unique data that reveals the story of the garment’s creation, its journey and the best way to care for it.

Authenticated resale

Another Tomorrow partnered with Digimarc to create digital product links that let consumers view information at every point in the item’s history.

3/REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGIES

Digital first

Retail is continuously experimenting with new programs and tools to expand on virtual-to-IRL experiences. The evolution of retail alongside digital transformation is changing how customers interact with brands. In 2025, 70% of all US purchases will be digitally influenced, for luxury items, that will be 80%. By 2026, 24% of retail purchases are expected to take place online.

AI is improving operational efficiency and productivity across all scales but next to that, the creative, speech and advise function of AI will change retail. Businesses will need to shape genuine trust and be transparent when introducing new technologies like conversational AI commerce to human-to-manchine interactions.

Components of NFT technology, like loyalty programs are more aligned with authenticity, ownership, and co-creation. Nike’s .Swoosh programme and release of the “TINAJ” can be viewed as an evolution of a loyalty programme aligned with the behaviours of younger generations: interconnected in creation and community-keeping. Here, virtual collections can lead to physical exclusives.

Highly immersive shopping experiences in-store can be solidified with XR. Retail success will be about creating strong communities and genuine connections in both physical stores and online platforms.

Right, Nike Air Force 1 Lows “TINAJ” (This Is Not A Jpeg) .Swoosh Sneaker

UTILISING PLATFORMS

Creation and community tools

The digital ecosystem has opened up a whole new world of interaction. Technology is blurring industry lines, allowing retailers to be in contact and engage with consumers in new ways. Retail companies are starting to understand the benefits of playing as a media company. Personalized offerings that have been optimized through advanced analytics can be updated in close to real time, supported by digital storytelling. Brands need to dive deep into its core values and history and develop narratives that resonate.

Video games are played by 3bn people globally. The younger generation don’t think about it as ‘my physical life’ and ‘my digital life’. for them It’s just all the same. Each digital universe has its own physics and rules.

Games are places to hang out; they are shopping malls; they are catwalks. It is a social environment. Building a community has become essential. Online communities represent the culture of a brand, the voices and the values. Create something that delights them, and that they want to play or interact with. As the gaming landscape continues to evolve, collaborations will remain a key strategy for brands and game developers looking to expand their reach and engage with new audiences.

Social platform

Louis Vuitton has launched its own Discord server for holders of its NFT’s and non NFT-holders to communicate and see exclusive content.

Blend luxury and gaming

With the Aston Martin x PUBG collaboration, you can configure your personal Aston Martin vehicle in the Battlegrounds game.

Interaction

YSP has designed interactive installations for the Adidas Bejing flagship store, such as an interactive cube, a digital sound garden where visitors can dance with avatars, and a digital art exhibition, mixing experiences that are informative and entertaining.

THE INFLUENCE OF AI

Surreal and hyper realistic

The influence of AI and automation is set to reshape the way businesses interact with customers. Designers and brands are exploring the surreal and hyper-real aesthetic qualities that emerge from computer-generated visuals. These visual technologies are driving new futuristic interpretations of volumes textures and tactile sensorial experiences.

The integration of Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) technologies is changing the way retailers operate. Retail spaces can be virtually designed and act as digital twins, enabling businesses to refine their layouts and aesthetics with precision. Digital showrooms and simulations will not only offer a more immersive shopping experience but also serve as invaluable tools for staff training and reducing customer return rates.

Through the power of AI-driven assistants, retailers can offer personalized and efficient assistance, both through speech and image interactions. Chat GPT's natural language processing capabilities enable it to understand and respond to questions in a conversational manner. It can also analyze images and provide relevant product recommendations.

Insight

Embrace surreal aesthetics, utilize transformative technologies, and foster community engagement to thrive in the digital-first future of retail.

Left, Nike House of Innovation generative AI mixing board by Modem Works.

The Tote Bag installation by Marc Jacobs and PlayLab Inc.

Right, Klarna AI-powered image-search allows users to snap, search and shop anything around them.

Baidu’s chatbot Ernie, meaning "Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration”.

4/PERSONAL GROWTH

Expanding wellbeing

When implementing wellbeing into retail, a brand must shift from transactional retail to substantial retail. A community where an employee or coach and customer could boost one another’s mental and physical state can ensure a long-term strategy for wellbeing efficacy.

Led by Ulta Beauty, a YouGov survey with 5000 US teens and adults found that 91% of respondents identified negative self-talk as an obstacle for joy, and 74% of participating Gen Z did not notice when they put themselves down. The value of mental health within self-development programmes is achievable with a constant stream of support. Flourishing internally also involves others, moving towards a healthier living environment.

Future retail will revolve around an extended community and sensory interventions to support the mental hygiene of employees and consumers. Everything that we engage with in a sensorial matter can open up possibilities for enhanced care in any sector relating to our body and how we experience new retail spaces. Stores across multiple sectors are implementing spas or ‘mental health’ rooms to create an authentic and long-lasting relationship between brand values, product lifespan, and consumers.

Right, Dream View Lamp by Lise Vester

SENSORIAL GUIDENCE

“Understanding how we sense the world is critical for designing meaningful environments. I strongly believe in the significance of recognising and embracing care as a holistic practice - mentally, physically, socially and spiritually tailored to each individual.”

Lise Vester, designer of wellbeing products

Mental breaks

In-store concepts can be thoughtfully designed to promote mental well-being. These physical, immersive experiences have the power to soothe and ground individuals in a manner that is aesthetically supportive.

Incorporating healthy principles into these experiences can benefit people at various stages of life, encompassing mental, physical, spiritual, and social dimensions. These meaningful and nature-inspired encounters are guided by a blend of materials, art, lighting, and landscape.

From what we hear to what we touch, these experiences open up new possibilities for enhancing the care we provide in our everyday lives. Retail spaces can offer a respite for mental breaks throughout the day. Sensory experiences draw upon science-backed insights and neuroaesthetic data to inform design research and product interaction, contributing to a more holistic and enriching retail environment.

CONNECTING WITH
OTHERS

Authenticity

Brands can become lifelong partners to people, supporting them through the various life stages. Community events and in-person gatherings are valuable moments to promote healthier routines and connect in person. Retail spaces have transformed into safe havens, offering mental well-being support, a trend that has gained momentum in the post-pandemic era. Expert-led educational classes bring people together to learn or experience something new.

Becoming a pillar of safety and support in an individual's life can establish a brand as a trusted and recurring presence. People are not just looking for products to buy; they seek brands that prioritize their well-being. Building trust is central to this relationship, and authenticity is the cornerstone of trust.

By establishing trust by being transparent and truthful in their actions and communications, brands can position themselves as genuine partners in people's pursuit of health, purpose and a better life.