RTIH Top 50 Retail Technology Influencers interview: Nikki Baird
RTIH TOP 50 RETAIL TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCERS LIST SPONSOR
As part of a series of interviews with those who made it on to the RTIH Top 50 Retail Technology Influencers List, we discuss the retail space during the Covid-19 outbreak and beyond with Nikki Baird, Vice President of Retail Innovation at Aptos.
RTIH: Congratulations on making it on to the first ever RTIH Top 50 Retail Technology Influencers List. What’s does recognition as a retail tech influencer mean to you and Aptos?
NB: It’s very gratifying and flattering. I’ve been a subscriber to RTIH’s newsletter for a while now, so I very much appreciate your view of the market and I’m flattered to make the cut.
Being an influencer for retail tech is important to me and to Aptos in part because there is so much disruption and retailers have so much to think about and consider.
We very much want to be a partner in helping to cut through the noise and stay focused on what’s important from a retail tech standpoint.
RTIH: How has the past year been for you?
NB: Very weird. Both bland and normal (I’ve been a long time work from home worker) and also beyond crazy at the same time.
When I think about everything that our company has done in an effort to help retailers better navigate the global pandemic, I’m amazed. It hasn’t been a year – it has been both barely a week and also ten years all at the same time.
RTIH: Who have been the big retail winners and losers during the coronavirus outbreak?
NB: Those retailers who can be flexible have been the winners. Flexibility doesn’t always have to come from technology, but it definitely helps.
I remember speaking to one retailer early in the pandemic who had, in January, declined to take on a ship-from-store project because “there was no business case”.
Only to find that not being able to sell anything in stores at all suddenly becomes a very compelling business case.
But to their credit, the company implemented it very quickly, cutting through the red-tape and analysis paralysis that had previously delayed them.
I think a lot of retailers saw that their own decision processes can cost them more than any potentially failed implementation. It will be interesting to see if they remember that when we come out of the pandemic.
RTIH: What are your retail predictions for 2021 and beyond?
NB: Back to school will be a season like no other.
Enough consumers in enough places will feel safe going back to stores by that time, and the excitement of a full year of in-person school combined with the need to bring fast growing kids to a store to try things on will converge to bring shoppers back to malls, high streets, etc. at that time.
There will still be an uneven pattern of shutdowns and constrained capacity in stores as we react to flare-ups and outbreaks of new variants, which will make managing a retail business more akin to trying to walk across quicksand.
2021 will be much better, sales-wise, than 2020, and may be better than 2019 depending on how quickly things can reopen. But 2021’s sales will not look anything like the channel breakdown of 2019.
Omnichannel use will still remain high. In 2022, online spending will come off of pandemic highs, but not anything close to going back to 2019.
RTIH: What will be the must watch retail technologies over the next year?
NB: Contactless will remain very hot – contactless ordering, paying, delivery, even in a store context. It’s an easy way to ensure a layer of safety when variants etc. make things still uncertain.
After that, it may not be exciting, but I expect to see a lot of investment in supply chain solutions in 2022.
There has been a massive shift in where demand comes from – away from stores and into online. The supply chain was not designed for that.
The demand is not going to return to stores at the same level it was at before. Retailers will have to take a new look at their merchandising solutions, their order management, their supply network in order to cope with those shifts.
RTIH: What will the retail landscape look like this time next year?
NB: There will be a lot of explaining about store like-for-like sales again this time next year, since the crazy comparatives of 2021 to 2020 are going to have a lasting impact until we work through them.
Right now, we’re seeing some retailers posting daily store like-for-likes of 3,000%. Clearly, investors should not expect to see that again next year.
But I would not be surprised if by this time next year we see at least as many stores out there as there were in 2019.
Given all the store closures that happened in 2020, I don’t think retailers will find that reduced level of store presence sustainable.
