What are the cultural macro currents impacting retailers and brands in 2023? From recessionary retail to the “Joyconomy” and inclusivity to Web3, the consumer experts and futurists at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence have mapped out the top trends informing the 2023 retail landscape. This article is adapted from “The Future 100: 2023,” an annual forecast of the most compelling trends to watch in the coming year.
Mending Goes Mainstream
High-street brands are bringing repairs to the mass market via fresh in-store options.
In 2022, Uniqlo launched its Re.Uniqlo Repair Studio at its New York flagship in SoHo, where customers can get buttons and zippers replaced, holes patched and seams mended. All repairs cost $5 and are done by Uniqlo’s alterations staff. The brand has since expanded this service into the U.K. and plans to expand further. H&M’s Kalverstraat flagship store in Amsterdam hosts a Repair & Remake workshop that revamps items from H&M or other brands.
Nike is taking a high-tech approach. In its London store in 2022, the brand piloted its Bot Initiated Longevity Lab — known as BILL — a “robot-augmented system” that can repair and clean customers’ sneakers. The in-store robot identifies areas of wear and tear during a 3D scan, which can then be repaired with a patch of the shopper’s choice.
Apple launched its self-repair service in the U.S. last year, which gives iPhone 12 and 13 and some MacBook owners access to repair manuals plus more than 200 individual parts and tools to fix their own devices. It then rolled out in Europe at the end of the year.
Why it’s interesting: Inflationary pressures added to eco-aspirations are driving a resurgence of the make-do-and-mendmentality. Retail repair services, once the preserve of luxury brands, are proliferating on the high street.
Crisis Retail
As the financial crisis bites, brands are stepping up to ease the strain on shoppers’ wallets.
Retailers are making a strong commitment to freeze prices or offer creative solutions to help combat inflation. On-demand rapid delivery platform Getir rolled back the prices of key grocery staples to 1990s levels. With inflation hitting a 41-year high of 11.4% in Canada, grocer Loblaws froze the prices on 1,500 products in its affordable/generic “No Name” range in September 2022. In November 2022, Walmart ran a “This Year’s Thanksgiving Meal at Last Year’s Price” promo, removing the cost of inflation from holiday meal prep.
U.K. supermarket Sainsbury’s Sainsfreeze pop-up in London hosted tutorials about how surplus fresh ingredients can be frozen and used later, helping customers to get the most out of each purchase. Value supermarket Iceland is also taking on an advisory role via its Shop Smart Cook Savvy partnership with energy supplier Utilita, which includes in-store and on-pack instructions about the most energy-efficient and cost-effective way to cook its food.
Why it’s interesting: As the cost-of-living crisis intensifies, consumers are looking for frugal life hacks to make their budgets stretch. Brands can play a key role here to show their community values and drive long-term loyalty.
Ageless Play
Brands are encouraging play for consumers of all ages.
McDonald’s introduced Happy Meals for adults in October 2022. “Everyone remembers their first Happy Meal as a kid ... and the can’t-sit-still feeling as you dug in to see what was inside,” the company said. “Now, we’re reimagining that experience in a whole new way — this time, for adults.”
Canadian cannabis company Houseplant is injecting a dose of playfulness into its product experience. The brand unveiled new packaging in April 2022 that takes inspiration from Lego blocks.
Moxy Hotels is offering travelers “playful stays.” Moxy describes its latest location, opened in New York in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in November 2022, as a “playful haven” with a design “inspired by the circuses and old-time menageries that once lined the Bowery.”
Why it’s interesting: After an unpredictable few years, people are looking for moments of emotional release. Brands are tapping into the cultural desire for optimism and childlike abandon by redesigning their offerings to encourage joy and play.
Multiversal Design
Physical spaces are getting dreamy, absurdist redesigns — transporting visitors to imaginary worlds and alternate realities.
As digital environments and virtual worlds evolve, they’re ushering in a new modern creative vernacular — one marked by a boundless creativity that surpasses the constraints of physical reality.
Balenciaga wrapped its London store entirely in pink faux fur in April 2022, covering the walls, floors and shelves in the fluffy material, and giving visitors the sense of stepping into a playfully absurd alternate world.
Louis Vuitton created a life-size toy racetrack at the Louvre in Paris for the backdrop of its spring/summer 2023 show in June 2022. “A giant children’s toy racetrack becomes a yellow-brick road for the imagination,” the brand said. “An evolutionary path for the mind where childlike fantasies come to life.”
Why it’s interesting: We are on the cusp of a new golden age of creativity, catalyzed by the dawn of Web3. As digital design gets more sophisticated, it’s untethering creativity from the bounds of the physical world — opening the door to multiversal design, both on and off screens.
Mass Inclusive Brands
Brands are bringing inclusive products into the mainstream.
In July 2022, Pottery Barn launched a new range of adaptive furniture based on its 150 best-selling styles. The pieces were designed with support from the Disability Education and Advocacy Network and are more accessible for people with mobility issues. The range is available online and in stores, at the same price as the original designs.
Packaged goods are also getting an overhaul. Strauss, one of Israel’s largest food manufacturers, announced in February 2022 that it will adapt its snack packaging to make it easier to open for people with disabilities. In Europe, Kellogg’s has added NaviLens codes to all of its cereal boxes, allowing those with sight impairments to use their phone to scan the package for nutritional and other information.
Why it’s interesting: People with disabilities and their families have an estimated $13 trillion in spending power, according to the “Global Economics of Disability 2020” report from Return on Disability. By considering the various needs of a wider audience, brands are able to tap into the opportunity that inclusive design brings, creating better, more accessible products for all.
Accessible Commerce
Brands are leveraging advances in voice recognition technology to make physical and digital spaces accessible to all.
Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft have joined forces with the University of Illinois Speech Accessibility Project, which aims to make voice-recognition technology more effective at understanding people with conditions that alter their speech pattern.
Alibaba’s online marketplace Taobao is expanding its use of voice search to make China’s leading e-commerce platform more accessible to elderly users who live outside tier-one cities.
Starbucks is trialing speech-to-text technology, which will allow both customers and staff to see a live visual display of all conversations during the ordering process, making its cafes more approachable for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community.
Why it’s interesting: Brands are leaving money on the table by failing to make their spaces and services universally accessible. Voice recognition and speech-to-text technologies play a key role in making physical and online retail inclusive for all.
Web3 Brands
Brands are taking on Web3. YSL Beauty debuted its Web3 and NFT initiative in June 2022, aiming to create a new loyalty experience. YSL NFT holders will gain access to additional content, launches, drops and more throughout the year on the brand’s token-gated page. The same month, Prada dropped its first Timecapsule collection of NFTs, which allows consumers to access exclusive experiences — the monthly Timecapsule issues have sold out ever since.
Starbucks will soon offer a Web3-based rewards program in which collectible coffee-themed NFTs will serve as tokens for owners to gain access to additional drops, membership and events.
Why it’s interesting: Web3 is inevitable. To prepare for its arrival, brands are arming themselves with updated digital strategies.
Next-Gen Ownership
An emerging digital framework is introducing a new formula for ownership. In the coming digital era of Web3, users will not only co-author, but co-own their digital experiences.
In the past, if a user created something and posted it on Instagram, the platform would own that asset. But others like Niche are putting control into users’ hands. On Niche, the “members are owners,” Niche co-founder and CEO Chris Gulczynski said.
The social media platform’s decentralized model makes users “owners in the same way that someone who has stock in a company is an owner,” Niche co-founder and CTO Zaven Nahapetyan said. “As their group becomes more desirable, more exclusive or gets more media coverage, the value of their ownership stake could go up.”
Members-only restaurant FlyfishClub, set to open in 2023, is experimenting with NFT-based ownership. NFTs have “changed the value proposition to our members,” David Rodolitz, founder and CEO of Flyfish Club, said. “They own the membership rather than essentially renting a social experience. They own their access.”
Why it’s interesting: A paradigm shift is underway. Ownership is no longer defined by the ability to hold a physical item in your hands. These new ownership models will revolutionize the way brands and consumers interact with digital goods, services and content.
Cryptoliteracy
Financial institutions and fintech brands want to demystify the metaeconomy.
In March 2022, the U.S. Treasury launched the Financial Literacy Education Commission, which is responsible for creating educational materials and organizing outreach to inform the public about how crypto assets work.
Fidelity Investments launched a financial education center in the metaverse in April 2022. The virtual learning center, located in Decentraland, helps educate visitors on investing basics, the metaverse and Fidelity’s new metaverse exchange-traded fund. The center was created to “inform a new generation of investors,” the brand said.
In February 2022, Mastercard expanded its consultancy services to cover crypto-currency, NFTs and open banking. The new suite of services will help banks and businesses adopt digital assets like crypto-currency and NFTs, address risk assessment for digital currencies and NFTs, and advise on the development of digital wallets, crypto credit cards and crypto loyalty programs.
Why it’s interesting: Web3 is giving rise to new retail avenues and a nascent digital goods economy — all of which will inform spending patterns and are leading to the creation of a new cryptonomic ecosystem. But first, education needs to take place; the future of Web3 commerce hinges not only on adoption, but also on education — for both consumers and brands.
Co-Creative Commerce
Could the next era of retail see users co-creating brands’ virtual products and storefronts?
Nike is letting consumers design and sell their own virtual sneakers as part of Dot Swoosh, its new Web3-enabled platform. Nike describes the platform, which launched in beta in November 2022, as part virtual marketplace, part VIP loyalty community and part creator economy.
Nike has teased that Dot Swoosh’s community challenges will expand this year to include competitions in which members can win a chance to codesign virtual Nike products with the brand’s designers, even earning royalties on their sales. “We want to redefine what it means to be a creator,” said Ron Faris, VP/GM of Nike Virtual Studios.
Nike Digital is the brand’s fastest- growing segment, now comprising over a quarter (26%) of the brand’s total revenue. Its virtual Nikeland experience on Roblox — which lets users customize their own Nike sneakers — had attracted 26 million people as of November 2022, and its Web3 products had generated $185 million in revenue as of August 2022.
Forever21 is inviting shoppers to curate and operate their own virtual storefronts on Roblox. Announced in December 2021, Forever21 Shop City introduces a new user-generated retail format. Users build, stock and operate their own virtual Forever21 franchises — managing everything from stocking inventory to assisting customers, operating the cash register, hiring employees and decorating their storefront windows.
Why it’s interesting: The future of virtual retail will be co-creative. Creativity is becoming the new status symbol for the dawning Web3 era, and brands are adjusting their virtual activations to trade in creativity and co-creation alongside traditional products. Expect to see more brands democratizing “v-commerce” by offering creative control to their consumers.
About the Author: Emily Safian-Demers is an editor at Wunderman Thompson Intelligence.
