In this roundtable exclusive, three ANZ fashion retailers reveal their predictions in digital, bricks-and-mortar and sustainability. They include Australian womenswear brand Witchery, Australian swimwear brand Seafolly, and New Zealand-based outdoor wear brand Icebreaker.
What predictions do you see in the digital fashion retail space?
Witchery head of digital Jeremy Eaton: Artificial intelligence has been really well discussed, but I think it's going to be present in meaningful ways sooner than later in digital retail. We're already seeing it pop up in search and merchandising tools.
Product enrichment is starting to become a really common thread, and I think in the future, the really big unlock is going to be around planning and forecasting for digital retail. There are some companies in the US like Revolve that are already starting to use that quite well.
One of my less popular predictions is that we will see a bit of a rollback on the headless. I say this as we're a company that's investing in headless, but I think there are a lot of companies that are investing in it without clear use cases. I think that they'll realise that they've taken on operational complexity and start to roll back to a simpler tech stack. There's already a little bit of that happening in the market right now.
My final one is more broad: Smaller retailers have shown us that you don't need enterprise-level tech, or build, to deliver a world-class experience. I think there'll be a focus from larger players like us to try to wind back to nimbler tech stacks and really try to mimic that agility that those smaller retailers have and optimise operational overheads in the same way that they have.
What predictions do you see in the physical fashion retail space?
Seafolly CEO Brendan Santamaria: The major trend expected to continue in the retail space is that shift towards omni-channel retail. Smart retailers are really focusing on creating that seamless experience that allows their consumers to interact with their brand across multiple touchpoints - whether it's in-store or online, or even through social media.
Through the understanding of consumers’ preferences and shopping habits, retailers are able to tailor their offerings and provide that real personalized experience, and this leads to greater loyalty and increases the likelihood of a repeat purchase.
Experimental retail concepts will still remain a big trend, creating spaces that are designed to offer unique shopping experiences.
And then of course, there's always going to be the focus on sustainability, ethical practices, as consumers become more conscious of the impact of their purchases on the environment and society.
What predictions do you see in the sustainable fashion retail space?
Icebreaker brand marketing and communications manager Krysia Drecki: Some of the key things that are coming to life are really just around the strong regulations to reduce waste in the apparel industry, specifically in our Europe market.
We often find that Europe's a leader in the sustainability space. So we see mandates coming from the European Commission to ensure compliance for apparel brands and manufacturers to ensure certain sustainability attributes of products - such as durability, chemical compliance, or end-of-life life management - are upheld to a high standard.
At Icebreaker were really happy to see this higher accountability for our industry, and we truly welcome that guidance from authorities to reduce the impact of our industry overall, and making brands accountable for that.
There is so much greenwashing out there, and so it is a positive move in the right direction to be held accountable for some of the claims that we're making within the industry.