On the shoulders of retail giants

As I settled in for the recent session on ‘The Future of Retail’ at BT’s beautiful Innovation Lab in Quarry Bay, visions of drone delivery, AI personal shoppers and facial recognition technology danced in my head.

While the discussion did touch on many themes around digital transformation - Jonathan Cummings from Fitch Hong Kong expertly moderated a fascinating discussion that helped me understand the future of retail will be driven by far more than just the robots.

Here are a few of the themes I went away thinking about:

The future of retail in some markets is already the present in others

The combination of lessons from other markets and insightful homegrown innovation was discussed as a recipe for progress anywhere in the world.

Elisa Harca of Red Ant talked about the advances in the UK, UAE and Singapore far surpassing the current state of Hong Kong in terms of both infrastructure and know-how.

Everyone shared the same hope that retailers in Hong Kong would take notice and speed things up in order to thrive in the new retail world order.  

The future of retail is borderless

‘My kids don’t shop in Hong Kong; they shop everywhere in the world’ - one of the more biting truth bombs.

Our host Simon Holt of BT Innovation Labs explained that one of the biggest arguments for change was the increasingly borderless nature of buying – especially amongst the younger generation. They will gladly go to Amazon and TMall if local providers can’t keep up.

The future of retail is built in the trenches as much as in the innovation labs

The rhetoric for change is not enough, however, as real transformation comes from bringing every party along for the journey.

Yardley Wong founder of Skandistyle shared her experience of needing to teach property owners how to charge for rental space when dealing with pop-up business models. With the infrastructure and understanding to nurture experimental retail models absent in Hong Kong, she took to the streets and built the environment she needed one retail experience at a time.

The future of retail is a test and learn process

Not surprisingly, risk-taking was a common theme from the entire panel. Calculated, iterative and correctly measured risk-taking, to be exact.  

Rather than an uprising, change was expected to come through small wins that demonstrate the right types of long term value - until the whole community eventually reaches a tipping point.

As Elisa mentioned, ‘The more positive experiences we give them the more they will be comfortable.’

The future of retail is not retail

The discussion was it's most lively when it turned to recasting retailers and property developers as community builders with service at their core.

Success would come through embracing their role as extensions of smart cities and creators of places people want to spend their time, instead of just sellers of stuff and space.

The future of retail is bright

As a wise ad once said, ‘hate something, change something’.

The frustration with the current state of retail in Hong Kong was palpable, but so too was the energy to keep pushing towards better. K11’s Victoria Dockside project, The Coffee Academics Brewery Lab and some big developers starting to embrace alternative rental schemes were all signs that the tipping point was getting closer every day.  

In the end, the future of retail, like most things, will be built on the backs of a community of brave, passionate and industrious people.

By Owen Smith, head of strategy, Grey Group.