THE 5 BIGGEST RETAIL TECH TRENDS
IN 2022

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
THE 5 BIGGEST RETAIL TECH TRENDS IN 2022
Retail companies have seen huge challenges and transformations over the
past few years while digitization and the adoption of technology
innovations have been accelerated. Here we look at the five biggest tech
trends in the retail industry.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
As we move into 2022, the global pandemic, which is still ongoing, has brought seismic changes to the
world of retail. Online, retailers are busier than ever and challenged by the need to fill orders and
refresh inventory at an increasingly rapid pace, as well as reduce revenue and wastage caused by
returns. Offline, in the world of malls, high streets, and bricks 'n' mortar, the challenges are very
different, as retailers face declining footfall and the need to compete with global e-tailers on
convenience as well as price.
It's clear that even in 2022, customers still want in-person retail, particularly when it can be augmented
with technology to create new experiences and match the convenience factor of online shopping.
Creating hybrid shopping experiences like “buy-online-pickup-in-store” and developing omnichannel
capabilities is the name of the game now, so here’s what I predict will be the hottest trends in shopping
and retail over the next 12 months:

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
TREND 1: CASHIERLESS SHOPPING
Pioneered by Amazon, which launched its first Amazon Go cashier-less store back in
2018, the model has proved successful, and it is now being rolled out by an increasing
number of retailers. These stores use cameras and sensors to track shoppers’ activities as
they remove items from shelves and place them in their bags, and automatically bill them
when they leave the premises. Initial use cases were limited to small convenience stores,
but during 2022 we can expect to see it rolled out into full-sized supermarkets, thanks to
companies including Tesco and Aldi throwing their weight behind the idea.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Of course, the idea is clearly controversial as, on the face of it, it involves replacing human jobs
with automated ones. McKinsey estimates that replacing a retail employee with automated
technology costs between 20% and 30% of the human worker’s salary, so there would seem to
be an obvious incentive for profit-oriented businesses to cut their workforce if the technology is
available. However, the counter-argument is that automating mundane work like scanning
groceries at a till will free up humans to do more rewarding tasks rather than simply replace
them. This makes the problem a societal challenge as much as it is a business one, meaning
society at large – including legislators – will need to cooperate on the solution rather than simply
leaving it in the hands of corporations. We can expect this discussion to become increasingly
prominent in 2022 and as the decade rolls on.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
TREND 2: EXPERIENTIAL RETAILING
Experience is increasingly becoming an important differentiator for consumers when it comes to
making decisions about who they will give their custom to. While previously businesses
expected to compete mainly on products and price, today factors such as customer service,
accessibility, ease of use, knowledgeability of sales staff and any number of “ambient” factors
such as the décor of retail outlets or the design of e-commerce sites play a part in customer
decision-making. Experiential retailing, from a technology point of view, is about understanding
the role that these factors play and putting measures in place to track and optimize their
impact. For example, in bricks 'n' mortar stores, sales assistants can be equipped with hand-held
terminals that can give them information on customers' shopping habits and past purchases,
allowing them to provide "personalized" shopping experiences much as they would receive
online.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Experiential retailing involve working with any of the other trends mentioned in this article, as all
of them can impact customer experience. For online retailers, the focus in 2022 will most likely be
on creating new ways of connecting with customers – for example, online chatbots or one-to-one
video chats between customers and sales assistants where the latest products can be examined
and demonstrated. There will also be efforts to meet growing customer demand to get "hands-
on" with products in a virtual environment, and augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will
play a part here. For example, virtual fitting rooms allow customers to “try on” clothes using AR.
BMW offers a virtual viewer that allows potential buyers to examine their cars and even see how
they would look parked outside their own homes. Virtual showrooms, on the other hand, allow
customers to examine and interact with products in virtual reality, such as this one created by
Walmart.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
TREND 3: AUTONOMOUS DELIVERY
When it comes to delivery, the “last mile” is often the most expensive leg of the journey.
So it makes sense that this is where many retailers are focusing their efforts when it
comes to autonomous delivery services.
Robotic delivery business Starship has carried out 1.6 million deliveries since launching in
2016, and next year will expand its operations into more US and mainland European
cities. They have already become a familiar sight for me when I go for a jog in my
hometown of Milton Keynes, England!

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
To be honest, it will not be surprising if Amazon's long-promised drone delivery service still does not
arrive in 2022 (it was initially promised for 2018 but has been continually delayed). But in the meantime,
other companies have been quick to pick up the slack. Alphabet’s Wing drone delivery service has been
trialed in Australia during 2021 and may expand into full operation in 2022, having successfully
delivered 10,000 cups of coffee without a single mishap or accident, according to the company. Back
down on the ground, Starship competitor Udelv, which also carries out autonomous deliveries via
machine learning-powered bots, has announced that its autonomous multi-stop cables transporter will
be unveiled in 2022. This self-driving vehicle travels on highways and is planned to be the first with the
capability to make multiple deliveries – up to 80 - in one journey. Also launching next year is mobility
experts Segway’s take on the autonomous delivery robot, created in partnership with LA start-up Coco.
It’s looking like 2022 will certainly be an eventful year for autonomous delivery technology.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
TREND 4: SOCIAL AND ONMICHANNEL COMMERCE
In retail, "omnichannel" means using all of the avenues available to reach customers and provide
services – and increasingly, this means social media and social selling. However, rather than simply
letting customers connect and buy through any channel – offline stores, websites, Facebook,
Instagram, etc. – it means offering a "joined-up" experience. For example, a customer might want to
place an order for an item through a business’s e-commerce site, then check the status of their order
via Facebook messenger, and then pick it up in-store when it arrives.
Providing a coordinated customer experience across all of the channels – and new ones like
metaverse or extended reality, as they become available – is the key to capitalizing on this trend.
Brands will also put an increased emphasis on social selling. This encompasses all the ways that social
media can be used to create direct selling opportunities, either through establishing new sales
portals, promoting products on existing channels, or collaborating with influencers and brand
ambassadors to build entirely new revenue streams.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
To manage the technology side of this, retailers will look to deploy “headless”
architecture – an e-commerce infrastructure that separates customer experience such as
UI and front-end from the back-end transactional and inventory management processes.
This enables a far more agile approach to omnichannel selling by encouraging “plug-
and-play” functionality whereby retailers can easily add, for example, voice control,
chatbot, text message ordering, or whichever new user experience or sales technology
functionality they want to build into their stack.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
TREND 5: RESILIENT AND SECURE RETAIL
Given everything that has occurred over the last two years, it isn’t surprising that resilience is a key
buzzword in all areas of B2C operations going into 2022. Particularly in offline retail, covid (and other
possible future pandemics) security is a hugely important element of this trend. For example, we can
expect to see technology deployed to encourage and monitor social distancing, such as the Voxel51
platform that uses computer vision to monitor traffic footfall and warn of dangerous build-ups in
congestion in crowded areas. Another solution, created by Wipro, uses heat vision to monitor the
temperature of people in crowds, potentially providing early warning of viral infections. It can also
monitor compliance with facemask regulations.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Resilience is also important in the face of global disruption to supply chains that have caused
business disruption and supply shortages in recent times. In 2022, we will see an increase in the
deployment of technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain to create more robust
and trustworthy supply chain processes. Although these won’t necessarily make companies
entirely immune from disruption by volatile world events, they make it more straightforward to
trace the source of disruption when it occurs and put measures in place to mitigate damage.
They will help identify opportunities to build in redundancy, such as building alternative backup
supply chains, as well as areas of business that can be moved closer to consumers, in order to
further reduce risk when things outside of a company’s direct control break down.

© 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Read more about these and other future trends in my new book,
Business Trends in Practice: The 25+ Trends That are Redefining
Organizations.

© 2021 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker,
futurist, and a strategic business & technology advisor to governments and
companies. He helps organisations improve their business performance, use data
more intelligently, and understand the implications of new technologies such as
artificial intelligence, big data, blockchains, and the Internet of Things.
LinkedIn has ranked Bernard as one of the world’s top 5 business influencers. He is
a frequent contributor to the World Economic Forum and writes a regular column for
Forbes. Every day Bernard actively engages his 1.5 million social media followers
and shares content that reaches millions of readers.

hello@bernardmarr.com
www.bernardmarr.com