Retail Week Conference 2012: Two clear trends are dominating discussions

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As the morning came to a close on the first day of The Cloud Retail Week Conference 2012, two clear trends were already dominating discussions – the future of this industry’s relationship with its customers and the shape of the retail landscape.

“Whether you feel you are facing a wall or climbing it, this conference is particularly well timed,” said John Lewis Partnership’s chairman Charlie Mayfield in the opening address. “It’s important to reflect what’s going on and consider what it means for the future.”

It’s a pertinent point. If 2011 was a year defined by the sector coming to terms with the second dramatic shift in the consumer landscape in four years, then 2012 should see retailers settling into the new reality and once more looking ahead.

The answer as to what that future looks like, of course, is less certain. Understandably, given the pace of change, the balance that retailers will need to strike between clicks and bricks remains stubbornly hard to predict.

DFS’s Ian Filby told the room that he believed retailers should treat the internet as their biggest and best shop, whilst Stewart Binnie, president of Aurora Fashions, left no one in any doubt as to his views, referring to a shake up on the high street that would go beyond what is currently forecast.

“There’s trouble ahead - I have no doubt we’ll all come out the other side, but getting through is going to be horrendous,” he warned.

Others though were less foreboding and this debate was a fascinating snapshot of the problems retailers face in trying to predict the future.

Jeremy Seigal, former chief executive of AS Watson UK, warned that these trends can take on a life of their own. “Everyone needs to look at their estate, but there is a danger that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Multichannel should be part of the solution, he said, but retailers should not get trapped in a “spiral of misery” that says “you only need one store called Westfield.”