What: The WRC, a partner of the IADS, has interviewed with 21 experts and retail leaders to identify the top 3 priorities in the sector for 2023.

Why it is important: Uncertainty is here to stay, and this creates a wide variety of views on what’s in store for 2023.

The president of the World Retail Congress (WRC), Ian McGarrigle, is looking back at a tumultuous year and asked 21 experts for their views on what 2023 has in store. Interestingly, the notion of “uncertainty” was one of the most used words across the panel, as next year is not supposed to be much different on that aspect.

Overall, the top 3 priorities that can be synthetised are:

-    Sustainability, its costs and the new upcoming regulations,

-    Teams: how to attract and retail talents,

-    How to serve customers already under pressure in an inflationary context, by reviewing the value of what’s being sold and the customer experience,

Regionally, some experts also mentioned watching closely the Mainland Chinese travellers’ behaviour, how to implement and deal on a long-term basis with new energy-saving processes, use tech to gain productivity points. The IADS contributed to this issue with an article on the acceleration and uncertainty, as well as a special report on the Christmas windows in department stores (visible here as the PDF does not display the pictures).

World Retail Congress end of 2022 Report