The Changing Landscape of Retail: 4 Ways the Retail World Is Evolving

When COVID-19 changed the world two years ago, it affected every aspect of life and industry. Retail was no exception.

The pandemic has changed the way we shop, and consumer expectations and buying behavior have adapted accordingly. The changing landscape of retail has required retailers and product manufacturers alike to adapt…and adapt quickly.

Here are a few of the biggest shifts we’re seeing as the retail world continues to evolve and how the Flywheel team can help you navigate this fast-changing landscape.

1. Consumer Product Choices

Consumers are spending more time at home than ever. Whether they’re working remotely or simply going out less often, people’s lives are much more home-based than they were before the pandemic.

As a result, we’re seeing consumers buying different products. They're investing in things that are more important to them in their personal lives: their homes (including home and yard maintenance and decor), home-based entertainment, and products that make their day-to-day lives easier.

Retailers have responded by adopting smart inventory strategies to prioritize the items consumers are looking for now.

Part of our passion for the work we do here at Flywheel is finding ways to make the process of sourcing and product development easier for our clients. We work with a wide variety of products and manufacturing, we’re cognizant of consumer needs with our retail backgrounds and what is trending currently in the marketplace. 

We specialize in finding the “white space” in the marketplace to make our client’s products and ideas succeed. We know how retailers respond to changing trends when it comes to product assortment and sourcing.

2. Inflation’s Impact

Consumer sentiment has been colored by inflation since May of 2021, and it may be a while before inflation stabilizes. With increasing interest rates and product prices, consumer optimism has cooled and shoppers are less likely to spend as much as they used to.

This has changed the types of products consumers are buying. With inflation-related price increases, people are gravitating more towards necessities and holding off on big-dollar purchases.

Still, it’s important to avoid knee-jerk reactions to inflation. Short-term tactics can backfire by endangering long-term growth and encouraging an influx of low-cost disrupters in the market. 

The team at Flywheel can help you determine how to best handle the impact of inflation on your business. We’re able to work in multiple countries with a range of options, working hand-in-hand with you to find the best possible solutions for sourcing products at competitive prices. 

In addition, product innovation helps us be well positioned as things normalize and shoppers begin looking for new products. As demand comes down, so do costs, and Flywheel works to quickly capture these cost reductions, leveraging them for your benefit.

3. Supply Chain Challenges

It’s no secret that supply chain challenges have plagued the retail world over the past couple of years.

But supply chain issues are not only frustrating to industry professionals and consumers alike…they’re changing the way people determine what products they really want vs those they can live without. It makes sense: when people know they’ll have a long wait for an item, they think twice about whether it’s really worth the wait or not.

Even amidst supply chain logistic struggles, most products are still sourced overseas, because it’s still cheaper to manufacture there than in the U.S. Some manufacturing is coming back to the States, yet we still see a very large percentage of the products we rely on in our everyday lives being made overseas.

It’s not an easy time for sourcing, but what we can provide at Flywheel is a team of seasoned retail and sourcing professionals who can help you determine what works best for your products.

And as costs are now coming down and delays are lessening, we can help with strategy on costing. We keep our finger on the pulse, quickly reacting to the changing market.

4. Ecommerce and Consumer Demand

While the growth of ecommerce was ongoing prior to 2020, the pandemic significantly accelerated the pace of that growth. Retailers large and small have opened ecommerce shops and consumers have increased their rates of online shopping. Consumer options have multiplied to include curbside pickup, buy-online-pick up-in-store (BOPIS), free shipping and returns, and more.

As a result, today’s consumer wants to shop more easily and get things faster. They want options, both for what they buy and how they buy it. Consumers expect an omnichannel experience when they shop, and they expect to see a product assortment that gives them a wide range of choices.

This change in consumer demand has created an atmosphere where speed to market is a little more fast and furious than it once was.

Flywheel can help you stay ahead of consumer demand and ensure you’re getting your product to market in a timely manner.

Flywheel Can Help You Navigate the Changing Landscape of Retail

As the retail world evolves, you need a partner who can help you evolve with it.

Other sourcing companies may have adequate sourcing teams, but they typically have little-to-no retail knowledge or experience. At Flywheel, every member of our team has a retail background and is experienced in knowing what’s best in the marketplace.

Our team has deep roots in the retail industry, with extensive experience spanning all areas of retail, including buying, manufacturing, design curation, and product development. This sets Flywheel apart from other sourcing companies

Among the benefits of working with Flywheel, you’ll find that we excel at:

• Identifying white space opportunities within the marketplace. We do our due diligence to understand the retail landscape. We’ll do extensive research and come to the table with ideas of where your product or concept could fit within the retail marketplace.

• Product development/curation. We help you develop new products and offer direction to curate your products for better sales. 

• Costing…a.k.a., “retail math.” Our team is savvy at getting you the best costs and knowing where price points need to be to make good margins. We’ll work to get you the best costing scenarios to arrive at the best price points in a challenging market.

Want to see what Flywheel’s retail expertise can do for your company? We’d be thrilled to use our retail and sourcing experience to help you find success within the changing landscape of retail. 

Contact us to schedule a 1-hour free consultation to learn more about what we can do for your business.