Comment: What innovations will dominate the next 25 years of retail?

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It’s 1988. At a secret location, a team of crack journalists is pulling together the final elements of a new specialist magazine aimed at retailers.

It’s 1988. At a secret location, a team of crack journalists is pulling together the final elements of a new specialist magazine aimed at retailers. Meanwhile, a couple of nascent entrepreneurs are jockeying for position in a crowd of eager hopefuls at the entrance to Camden Lock Market.

After some tense moments, the finger of fate, attached to the arm of destiny, connected to the market manager points in their direction and their first day as independent retailers begins. Not unexpectedly, this passes unreported in the first edition of Retail Week.

Twenty-five years on, a combination of these unconnected events means you have the dubious delights of reading my ramblings in this column and I have the opportunity to wish everyone who makes that possible a happy anniversary.

Another event that slipped by almost unnoticed back then was the global introduction of the TCP/IP networking protocol that would eventually lead to the world wide web. Hard to believe now that early internet evangelists took a dim view of the commercial prospects for such technology, but I remember being severely rebuked for suggesting as much to one of the first UK service providers.

This otherwise innocuous innovation is now reshaping the way we run our businesses. Pure-play online retail is a serious proposition for start-ups, while the exigencies of an uncertain economy make it a credible alternative for those caught between intransigent landlords and short-sighted governments. A set of circumstances very few would have predicted back in the 1980s.

So is online the future of retail? Maybe, or there could be something as seemingly insignificant happening right now that will be another game changer. In 1988, the idea that we’d be able to buy things by stroking pocket-sized devices would have seemed far-fetched. Now we’re being told 3D printers may soon mean we don’t even have to wait for delivery.

Who knows what innovations may dominate the next 25 years? Whatever they are, I hope I’m around to read about them in Retail Week in whatever futuristic format prevails in 2038.