Here are some of my retailing trend predictions I have a feeling will emerge this year. 

1. Travel is back on the books..

Hopefully Omicron is as much a solution to the pandemic as it is a problem, and it will give us all antibodies with much less risk and pain. Then the world can move on.. for sure we will want to travel again, so I see travel related gifts making a come back.. think travel diaries, solid travel shampoo or experience vouchers. But pop-up stores and travel location shops may well become super viable as we all start to move again.. 

2. Merging of online and retail stores.. 

Think about QR codes on products displayed, linking to more information, and the option to have it delivered to your home direct, or as a gift to a friend. No need to hump it around town. Think about furniture, all the hassle of getting it in your car etc.. You could tastefully display furniture items in your shop.. and have them all shipped to your customer via a 3rd party drop-shipper.. NB coming to AW soon.

3. Social Marketing.. 

Online marketing was originally eBay, then came Amazon with smarter people realising they need to make their own stores, typically Shopify stores. The savvy used social media to support their online retail efforts. The super savvy paid influences to endorse their products..

That's how it kind of developed, but what if this all gets flipped on it's head.. (And it's happening already in China)  What is it?  Well, think shoppable Instagram posts.. influencers (and this could be you) not just endorsing a product controlling the whole sales process. The backend of the shoppable post is a single page Shopify store (or similar) which feeds the orders to a drop-shipping service that does the fulfilment part of the process. Your market is as big as your followers, and some influencers in China are doing million dollar sales on a weekend.

4. Changing Customer Preferences

I'm not sure I agree with every change in customer preffernce, but wether you do or not it is important to adapt or die. One of the biggest preffence changes I have seen in years is the developing anti-Chinese product trend. Most of the companies we deal with in China are small family concerns with hard working people who don't deserve to suffer. However maybe it is time to rebalance.. as you know at AW we have been making our own UK products and importing from India for 20 years. These days we also import from Nepal, Morroco and more and more Indonesia. 

By the way, two containers just arrived from Indonesia.. see below for back in stock news.

5. Independent Specialists are the new retail champs.

Department stores are dead and almost gone. More and more chain stores are struggling. Town centres across the UK are changing, It's bad, but the flipside is it is creating opportunities for specialist independent retailers. People just love to buy from enthusiastic specialist retailers, and now empty shops at great deals are available to fill the retail gap left by the department store demise. Stores with a sense of experience, engaging their customers and entertaining them are doing great. Couple that with social marketing as above.. and as we start to get out more the independent retailer, I believe  will prosper mightily :)

Hope that's a little food for thought, I hope 2022 is an awesome year for you.

At AW we will be working hard to continue to bring you the best in giftware.. and we have big plans.

Thank you so much for your trade over the last year, and we look forward to working together with you to make the very best of 2022

Take care..