The COVID-19 outbreak has had a profound impact across industries and economies worldwide, and one of the industries most impacted by the outbreak has been retail. With physical stores forced to close, retailers have been given a choice between shuttering-up and weathering the storm or creating new business models more suited to the current climate. Some have thrived this way. Most have not: many countries have seen numerous retail victims. In short 2020 has been a roller coaster ride for the sector.
As we race towards the end of the year and strategies for 2021 start to take shape, we take a look at some of our work in the retail space this year, and how we’ve combined advanced analytics, data science and technology to help solve our customers’ most pressing problems.
Retail Week and The Smart Cube partnership
In June 2020, we formed a strategic partnership with Retail Week to help UK retailers leverage analytics to adapt to the changing sector landscape. The partnership brings together RWRC’s (Retail Week and World Retail Congress) long heritage in retail, strong industry connections and unparalleled sector understanding, and The Smart Cube’s decades of experience in providing analytics and research solutions to retailers, ranging from leading high street fashion and grocery businesses to e-commerce startups.
The first initiative launched under the partnership brings timely, relevant insights and thought leadership to the UK retail sector, during this period of extreme disruption. The Coronavirus Consumer Pulse monitor pulls together data from a multitude of sources to better understand consumer behaviour and sentiment, track how that is changing alongside government actions, and establish the businesses that are emerging online as winners during the crisis. Explore all Coronavirus Consumer Pulse reports to see what we’ve uncovered.
Behind the scenes of our analytics partnership with Retail Week
To dive deeper into what the partnership with Retail Week means for The Smart Cube, and the wider retail community, we caught up with Rachit Khare, VP of Analytics and Data Science at The Smart Cube. Rachit answers questions ranging from extracting actionable customers insights from unstructured customer data to an overall outlook of the UK retail industry for the remaining 2020. Read the complete Q&A here: Behind the scenes of our analytics partnership with Retail Week
New rules of retail
With lockdown restrictions reduced, is it time for the high street to make a comeback? How can store owners survive a radically different retail landscape?
As part of our partnership with Retail Week, we’ve been exploring the challenges of this reimagined high street – and have come up with three analytics and insight-based tips to help retailers in this unprecedented time. Read the full blog here: Commerce and COVID-19: discover the new rules of retail
Digital Fashion 40: A new report on the retailers fashioning an online future
The ‘Digital Fashion 40’ is a new benchmark produced with Retail Week – analysing the UK fashion retailers best equipped to survive and thrive in a digital post-COVID future. It analyses every aspect of their online performance – including digital capabilities, website traffic, customer experience and brand sentiment. The comprehensive study leveraged data from Retail Week Prospect, WGSN Barometer and digital market intelligence platform SimilarWeb to assess retailers against 250 KPIs.
To access the full report, download now: https://content.thesmartcube.com/en/digital-fashion-40-report-on-retailers-fashioning-an-online-future
At The Smart Cube, we combine advanced analytics, data science and technology to solve our customers’ most pressing problems, helping them to thrive in today’s competitive environment. Find out more about our Retail solutions.