Set over the course of three days in London, the ShopTalk Europe trade show welcomed back an audience of over 3,000 industry members for the first time in two years. The visual stylings were reminiscent of the 1970s, but all talks were looking to 2022 and beyond. BeautyMatter sat stageside to record the latest developments in the retail space. Here are our findings.

E-commerce

• Global internet users grew by 500 million in 2021.
• 70% of UK shoppers have been impacted by inflation.
• The live shopping market in China is estimated at $500 billion. Outside of China, the value of live shopping will be $50 billion.
• 25% of all e-commerce in China takes place via livestream.
• TikTok predicts its live shopping opportunity will grow to $7.3 billion by 2023.
• Social commerce in the UK will reach $7.46 billion by 2023.
• In 2020, estimated global sales distribution were $1,351 million on smartphones, $302 million on computers, $163 million on tablets and $3.4 million on VR devices.
• In the past year, Alibaba delivered 10 million packages using an in-house developed autonomous logistics robot, Xiaomanlv, which can deliver 50 packages at once and, on a single charge, travel up to 62 miles.
• Ocado delivered 10 million packages in China last year using robots.
• Huge Inc. predicts that by 2027, 100% of digital advertising will be natively shoppable.
• Approximately 55% of the North American e-commerce market was distributed among four companies: Amazon (41%), Walmart (7%), eBay (4%), and Apple (4%). In China, 75% was distributed across Alibaba (47%), JD.com (17%), and Pinduoduo (13%). Europe’s market is extremely fragmented, with Amazon only holding 12% share by comparison. 
• According to Comptera Pricing Platform, on average, health and beauty retailers lose 6% in gross profit annually due to suboptimal pricing approaches.

“Growth is through innovation and R&D. There’s huge progress to make on smart stuff to do with automation and robotics and supply chain efficiencies and food waste, as well as on the other side with user interfaces. We’ve barely touched the surface on how smart they can be and how interactive and conversational they will become.”
– Tim Steiner OBE, co-founder & CEO, Ocado Group

“In the past one and a half years, we've been redefining this new shopping culture that I call community commerce, which sits at this interesting space between community creators, entertainment, and is redefining product discovery. We very much see TikTok as being one of those platforms where these components of entertainment, commerce and community connect.” 
–  Patrick Nommensen, Head of E-Commerce Operations, TikTok Shop, TikTok

“Social commerce is not at the top of the conversion funnel, it's more at the bottom. It has been replaced by gaming and esports.” 
– Jose Nino, VP of Global Digital Strategy & E-Commerce, U.S. Polo Assn.

Shopper Mindset

• Four out of five people are likely to buy on social media if they have watched live or participated in conversational commerce.
• 42% of grocery shoppers said fulfillment is the most important service attribute.
• Surveyed consumers listed the top three factors of an excellent digital experience as: free shipping, fast delivery, and an easy-to-navigate website. 
• 70% of social sales volumes are made in China.
• Beauty shoppers’ priority of purchasing places are marketplaces (28%), multi-brand retailers or in-store (27%), the brand’s website (19%), the brand’s physical store (13%), and search on social (13%).

“People still want a human-to-human relationship. They want to be advised. They want to be taught how to use products, they want a prescription, and this can happen easily in a point of sale when you have trained people with experience that can take care of you. That's why I believe the point of sale is coming back to a crucial touch point: because the consumer can experience the product in beauty.”
– Giuseppina Violante, VP EMEA Portfolio Strategy, Coty

"I see the future of retail pricing as a smart and adaptive environment where retailers can regularly recalculate optimal prices to make sure their offers always meet customers' expectations without compromising the business goals."
– Alex Galkin, CEO and co-founder, Competera Pricing

“We have to remember that most people are not sitting in their brand new apartment and considering what furniture to buy. They're probably sitting on the bus with their children trying to quickly buy something online. We need to be making the technology that people can use in whatever environment it is that they're doing that shopping.”
– Barny Darby, co-founder, Hullabalook

“The consumer is coming back to the physical shop, but the way they want to shop and act, their purchase choices, has been significantly influenced by the digital environment. They expect a seamless experience in the point of sale that is also aided by technology.”
– Giuseppina Violante, VP EMEA Portfolio Strategy, Coty

Metaverse

• Online penetration is increasing tenfold and shows no signs of reversing.
• Huge Inc. predicts that by 2027, all marketplace giants will offer end-to-end services for brands to develop and sell virtual products, including minting NFTs.
• NFTs were a $25 billion market in 2021.

“Not everyone will be winners in the meta-economy, but everyone can participate. Whether it’s enabling digital souvenirs as part of a loyalty program, creating digital products for online avatars, or investing in haptic technology, by 2024, brands should have a solid meta-strategy in place.”
– Carla Buzasi, President & CEO, WGSN

“We are integrated with all of the major ecommerce platforms and you consistently see higher engagement, higher conversion rates, and higher average order value with customers going through these virtual stores. It’s about moving away from the ‘search return transaction’ experience that you have on ecommerce sites today into a complete end-to-end branded experience that engenders loyalty in the long term.”
– Neha Singh, Founder & CEO, Obsess

“The metaverse is less about becoming immersed in the fantasy world of unicorns and dragons, and more about escaping the physical limits to how we spend our time in virtual space.”
– Rebecca Hunt, Partner, Octopus Ventures

“We're witnessing the emergence of a completely new interface for commerce. You've got all of the benefits of the real world, social, 3D, but also with the capabilities of digital. Then you layer on to that this new web part paradigm, web3. Currently there is this NFT race, but bubbling under the surface is a complete rebuilding of the web in a way that benefits consumers in terms of giving them proper ownership and control over data.”
– Justin Banon, co-founder, Boson Protocol

Sustainability

• 70% of consumers want sustainable products but don’t want to compromise on quality.
• For 37% of European consumers, sustainability is highly important.
• Retail value chains produce a 40% share in EU GHG emissions.
• #ZeroWaste grew by 114% and #Local by 69% in the past year.
• 60% of shoppers say sustainability is more important when deciding what brands and retailers to buy from, 69% will be more cautious about personal health.

“It starts with two words: common sense. When you talk to academics on this subject, they say unless we do something in the next 10 years, we’ve really got a problem that’s irreversible. What can you do as an individual?... [As a brand], it's about eco not ego. Take your customers on the improvement journey with you.”
– Anya Hindmarch, founder and CEO, Anya Hindmarch

“It’s always important not to jump on a bandwagon. If you're going to do good, ask yourself, can you act to maximize and optimize that performance? Your authenticity has to reflect what you believe in and what you do because it comes across as really real. The other thing is we can’t rest on our laurels. If you only partner with people that really are held accountable in that [sustainability] way and are socially responsible, you amplify the reach and the good that can be done.”
– JuE Wong, CEO, Olaplex

“Our own research tells us that sustainability impacts purchasing decisions for 70% of Gen Z. So we clearly see that there is this intention, but then they don't have that much spending power to be so faithful to their values.”
– Olivia Calafat, Chief Marketing Officer, Wallapop

Community Building

“Companies need to evolve to include ownership or consumer buy-in to retain local customers.”
– Carla Buzasi, President & CEO, WGSN

“A few months ago, a founder told us something very profound. He said, beauty is a culture; in fact our vision beyond beauty goes way beyond putting lipstick on someone’s face or looking like a magazine cover, we believe beauty empowers people. It’s part of people’s lives and helps them affirm their values and beliefs. We live in a world that too often takes a narrow view on beauty and values conformity over courageous individuality.”
– Sylvie Moreau, President, Europe & Middle East, Sephora

“The way that DTC brands leverage their data and put it into action is going to be key for us to bring into the retail environment.”
– Carole Diarra, Global VP Marketing, UGG

“We are very data driven, so I have a transformation team made up of four data scientists. They help us use data from trend analytics, search analytics, trade industry reports, and more importantly, tap into the psyche of the customers. When you have a team that is only dedicated to helping you get to the source of truth, it really works because there's no hidden agenda. Nothing is worse than when you ask somebody to do data analysis and all they're trying to do is to validate their own biases. I used to be a trader, and my boss would tell me numbers don't lie, but liars do numbers.”
– JuE Wong, CEO, Olaplex

Gen Z

“Gen Z is an aspirational target. They have the capacity to make things trendy, to change the perception of things, and this generation especially has even more tools than any other generation to amplify a message, so they are even more influential.”
 – Olivia Calafat, Chief Marketing Officer, Wallapop

“We are spending a lot of time on understanding this shift away from what used to be a very linear purchase journey to something that is now becoming a new kind of always-on space, in which there are a multitude of touch points that you have access to, to not only drive conversion and purchase and repeat touches, but to build that emotional connection that is becoming really important for this generation.”
– Sandra Kampmann, Director of Insight and Analytics, Asos

“Of course, distribution is important. We need that to be viral. But over-indexing more than ever in content will be very important. This is a generation that can amplify our content. They can make our content viral, so we need to leverage this and deliver great content.”
– Olivia Calafat, Chief Marketing Officer, Wallapop

“Mental health is a very big topic among this target group, so they will expect brands to help them with overcoming social stigmas and make them feel more calm, comfortable, confident, and to uplift them again.”
– Leonie Schuessler, Managing Partner, Strategy, Ogilvy

“Gen Z is the most anti-advert. They don't want to see advertising but they're happy to see content with advertising messages because it's promoting our products, but merged with content, entertainment, amusement, and fun.”
– Giuseppina Violante, VP EMEA Portfolio Strategy, Coty

From rethinking the potential of the metaverse to building a bulletproof sustainability strategy, retail definitely isn’t a simple game. But the true leaders, regardless of the consumer category, are harnessing the full potential of date, sharply eyeing consumer behavior, and building purchase opportunities for the relevant markets in accordance with the infrastructural opportunities of the region. Is it a rat race to see who can most quickly capture the consumer’s attention? Certainly. But holding and keeping their loyalty requires more finesse, future-facing tactics, and ultimately, authenticity.