Comment: Retail at top of its game through 25 years of change

In 1988, when Patience Wheatcroft published the first issue of Retail Week, she was confident she had “created a newspaper that a dynamic, innovative and professional industry like retailing deserves”.

Little has changed since. Retail remains a jewel in the crown of British industry - a shining example globally of what’s possible when the core fundamentals of product and service are leveraged by companies with a single-minded focus on their customers.

But if those principles have remained resolutely the same in the last quarter of a century, the environment in which retail professionals must apply them has changed - and continues to change - at an unprecedented rate.

Transformation in retail is nothing new. From the arrival of hypermarkets to the reinvention of corner shops by the big grocers, retailers have adapted continuously to the shifting needs and expectations of consumers.

Yet it is clear the forces now shaping the sector - financial, technological and social - are more profound than at any point in Retail Week’s lifetime. It was in 1936 that the economist Joseph Schumpeter, describing the arrival of the railways, said “hardly any ways of doing things which have been optimal before remain so afterward” but it’s always seemed to be the most fitting observation when applied to the digitalisation of retail.

After years when the core value chain of supplier, retailer and customer remained reassuringly stable, retail chiefs are now confronted with a radical shift. The boundaries of who can compete with whom, how and where are unrecognisable and the changes have robbed the high street of some well-loved brands. But they have also presented new markets, new opportunities and new ways to forge relationships with customers. As the pace of digitalisation increased, many feared retail as we knew it would struggle to survive. New names have been welcomed -from Asos to Amazon - but the truth is many of the great powers in the digital landscape are the same names that dominated these pages 25 years ago.

By remaining true to the characteristics identified by our founding editor, the industry has adapted with increasing and compelling confidence. It is a lesson not lost on us here at Retail Week. Those same forces demanded we innovate but our core principle has remained unchanged, which is to be the publication - in print, online and at our events - that this vibrant, colourful and crucial sector deserves.

It’s a fantastic industry to cover. Here’s to the next 25 years.