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Tag: retail research

  • Australian Shoppers Trust AI Recommendations over In-Store Retail Staff

    Australian Shoppers Trust AI Recommendations over In-Store Retail Staff

    Australian consumers now place more trust in artificial intelligence for shopping recommendations than in human retail staff, according to new industry research tracking store-floor buyer habits.

    The findings point to a decisive shift in how shoppers research products, compare prices, and finalize purchasing decisions across Australian retail channels.

    The shift away from floor staff

    Shoppers increasingly turn to automated search assistants, chatbot tools, and algorithm-driven recommendation engines before speaking to floor employees. Fast access to product specifications, unvarnished peer reviews, and real-time inventory checks gives digital tools an edge over human staff who may lack deep product knowledge.

    Retail workers face higher shopper expectations as a result. Store visitors often arrive having already researched technical details online, using physical visits primarily to confirm choices rather than seek basic sales guidance.

    What the preference change means for store networks

    Across the Asia-Pacific region, merchants in mature retail markets like Australia, Japan, and Singapore are reallocating technology budgets to support instant customer queries at the shelf edge. Retailers that integrate generative assistants into loyalty apps and in-store digital kiosks capture buyer intent earlier in the shopping cycle.

    Store operators must now decide how to retrain frontline staff to handle complex customer service issues rather than standard product lookup tasks.

  • Asia-Pacific Captures 42 Percent Share as Global Retail Hits 31.58 Trillion Dollars

    Asia-Pacific Captures 42 Percent Share as Global Retail Hits 31.58 Trillion Dollars

    Asia-Pacific accounted for 42 percent of the 31.58 trillion dollar global retail market in 2025, cementing the region as the primary revenue hub for consumer merchandise. The sector is expanding at an annual compound rate of 5.35 percent, heading toward 43.17 trillion dollars by 2031.

    Regional momentum stems from dense consumer populations, rapid formalization of modern store networks, strong manufacturing supply chains, and high mobile-commerce adoption across emerging markets. North America held the second spot globally, supported by higher household spending and established warehouse-club networks.

    Shifting Channel Mix and Digital Share

    Digital channels are taking a larger cut of total retail receipts. Global e-commerce penetration reached 23.5 percent in 2025, up from 18.0 percent in 2020, and projections put digital sales at 29.5 percent of the total market by 2031. Retailer-owned e-commerce and online marketplaces represent the fastest-growing routes to market, even as physical supermarkets and convenience formats retain volume dominance in food and grocery categories.

    Average global retail spending per person stood at 3,851 dollars in 2025, with that number forecast to climb to 5,026 dollars by 2031. Food and beverages remains the single largest product category worldwide, driven by everyday repeat demand that cushions operators against cyclical discretionary drops.

    Operational Pressure and Volume Recovery

    For store operators and digital merchants across Asia, top-line growth is shifting away from post-pandemic price inflation toward real merchandise volume gains. Real volume growth is forecast to accelerate from 2.8 percent in 2026 to 3.3 percent by 2030, putting sharper focus on store productivity, automated warehouse replenishment, and private-label margins.

    Global chains including Walmart, Amazon, Schwarz Group, Aldi, and Costco continue to recalibrate inventory to limit shrink and return costs. RetailNews Asia tracking shows regional operators are prioritizing membership ecosystems and in-house retail media networks to defend operational margins as logistics and wage bills rise.

    Merchants face an immediate baseline as global trade volumes, which expanded 4.6 percent in 2025, test supply visibility ahead of the projected 33.27 trillion dollar market turnover mark in 2026.

  • Shrinkflation Pushes Half of Australian Grocery Shoppers to Switch Brands

    Shrinkflation Pushes Half of Australian Grocery Shoppers to Switch Brands

    Eighty-five per cent of Australian grocery shoppers have noticed shrinkflation on supermarket shelves, driving half of them to seek out competitor brands when pack sizes shrink.

    The findings from the 2026 Australian Grocery Shopper Report show that reducing pack volumes rather than raising shelf prices carries immediate commercial risks for FMCG manufacturers. Overall price remains a decisive factor for six in 10 shoppers, but consumers now weigh cost directly against product volume, quality, and ingredient integrity.

    The cost of breaking consumer habits

    Consumer tolerance for stealth volume cuts has eroded sharply across grocery aisles. Focus Insights found that 60 per cent of shoppers do not believe packaged goods companies are transparent about size adjustments. When presented with the choice between a price increase or fewer biscuits in a pack, 59 per cent preferred the product to stay at its original size.

    Downsizing familiar products breaks repeat purchasing cycles. One in two consumers surveyed said they actively seek alternatives if a favourite item shrinks. One in three said they purchase the downsized product less often, and one in five said they stop buying the product altogether.

    The promotional trap for FMCG brands

    Price discounting adds another layer of margin pressure across the category. Nine in 10 shoppers said price promotions influence what they place in their baskets, with 57 per cent stating discounts almost always dictate their purchases. Frequent discounting cycles have conditioned 67 per cent of shoppers to defer purchases until products go on sale rather than pay full shelf price.

    For retailers and consumer packaged goods brands across Asia-Pacific markets, managing rising input costs requires explicit communication on shelf. Quietly trimming product weights threatens core volume share in high-frequency categories where private label substitutes are readily accessible.

    Focus Insights chief executive Deane Hubball and Believe You Me founder Blair Triplett will present the detailed category breakdowns and shopper sentiment data at industry briefings in Melbourne and Sydney next month.

  • Retail Trends Set to Shape the Customer Experience in 2022

    Retail Trends Set to Shape the Customer Experience in 2022

    The Asian retail landscape is significantly challenged today. With supply chain issues impacting on stock levels, increasing volumes of returns and increased customer expectations in relation to online deliveries – local brands will have a hard time in satisfying customers in 2022. As a result, retailers will find that they quickly need to adopt new systems and approaches that help meet the consumer demand for a seamless and more personalised shopping experience today and into the future.

    So what trends will shape the customer experience over the next year across Asia and what do retailers need to know?

    Returns management will increasingly impact consumers’ perception retail brands

    While eCommerce has served as a lifeline for retailers over the past year, the ever-increasing volume of returns is posing significant challenges, including impacting consumer perceptions of a retail brand. The returns process can regularly make or break the overall brand experience and savvy retailers are increasingly viewing the return process as an opportunity to further engage with customers, providing as it does, an additional touchpoint to enhance the overall customer experience.

    Retailers today need to have greater visibility and more intelligence around their inventory, regardless of where it is currently residing in their network. Smarter front-end omnichannel systems capable of efficiently dealing with customer enquiries and greater insight into data around transportation processes will be the key areas for brands looking to solve the challenges presented by the growing returns trend.

    The war for talent will put pressure on supply chain operations

    Given the extent to which a positive or negative customer service interaction can have on a shopper’s perception of a retail brand, the war for talent and need to retain high performing staff will create additional business pressures. In such an environment, organisations need to focus on selling themselves as an employer of choice and create and promote initiatives that set their business apart in a competitive hiring field.

    Given the need to retain IP in a challenging hiring market, more employers are focusing on career planning and succession internally to ensure adequate support and training for workers to move up the ladder. Many supply chain and retail organisations are also offering financial support for further tertiary education studies or providing retention bonuses to ensure continuity.

    Micro-fulfilment will help drive supply chain efficiencies and cost savings

    As eCommerce and ‘store to door’ delivery continues to grow, many retailers are struggling to turn a profit from online sales. The challenges of the last two years didn’t just fast-track eCommerce uptake, they also accelerated advances in technology, pushed businesses to revaluate traditional models, and forced many to rethink relationships between retailers, disruptive start-ups and automation; setting the scene for a radical shake up of fulfilment strategies over the coming year.

    One of these fulfilment strategies, and one of the most cost-effective trends retailers and supply chains are adopting is micro-fulfilment. Micro-fulfilment involves moving out of large singular DCs to smaller and more local and convenient hubs. By expediting the fulfilment process, micro-fulfilment gives brands the opportunity to get goods to their customers quicker; whilst also providing convenient collection point for consumers. With the adoption of this kind of smart fulfilment method, retailers can get their goods to consumers faster, cheaper and more efficiently.

    Visibility and forward planning will help future-proof retail and supply chain operations

    With supply chain issues leading to stock level challenges for many retailers, the last thing any business wants is to run out of stock – or worse, to later find out that the stock they needed was in the warehouse the whole time.

    To mitigate this, operational visibility and forward planning remain fundamental to retail and supply chain continuity and efficiency. To gain these insights, solutions like a Warehouse Management System (WMS), which integrate all sales and distribution channels into one place are requried. With innovations like a WMS, retailers have absolute transparency around their goods and are able to review the rules of stock allocation, temporarily giving priority to in-store stock over warehouse stock, thus, freeing up any trapped inventory confined within closed stores.

    For more information on how your retailer business can enhance the customer experience in 2022, please visit: www.manh.com/en-sg

    Written by Richard Wright, Managing Director, SEA, at Manhattan Associates

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  • Should retailers use emoticons in customer service support chats?

    Should retailers use emoticons in customer service support chats?

    Service providers who use emoticons are perceived as warmer, but less competent, according to a new research paper, which offers sage advice for retail brands engaging with consumers across digital platforms.

    The effect held true regardless of whether or not a customer service employee used emoticons that were pictorial or text-based, showing that the impact of emoticons is not purely driven by eye-catching graphics and colors.

    The Hong Kong Baptist University study investigates what happens when emoticons figure into commercial service discussions. Through laboratory and field experiments, the research showed the major effects of emoticons in customer service interactions and found that emoticon usage by a customer service employee had conflicting effects.

    According to the report, how emoticons are perceived is highly dependent on the recipient’s preferences. The individual customer’s personality and expectations on how a service relationship should be conducted plays an important role in how emoticon senders are ultimately seen. Customers who enjoy friendlier relationships with brands perceive service providers who use emoticons to be warmer, which in turn makes them feel more satisfied with the service provided. Conversely, exchange-oriented customers see a customer service employee using emoticons as less competent, making them more likely to be less satisfied. These effects apply to all emoticons, regardless of whether the emoticon used had positive or negative connotations.

    When service is deemed unsatisfactory and is failing to resolve the situation, the study reasons that all customers will increasingly place value on competence as opposed to warmth. In these situations, any emoticon usage by a customer service rep will have a negative impact on the customers’ attitude towards the employee.

    Conversely, when a customer service employee successfully addresses a customer’s needs with messages accompanied by an emoticon, the study finds that customers are more likely to buy.

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