Four Trends That Will Impact Retail in 2024

•Retailers will take GenAI hype to task in 2024

In 2024, retailers will continue to have AI on the mind, but will focus on separating
genuine opportunities from the hype by distinguishing between quick wins, distinctive
use cases, and transformational initiatives. One area of exploration will be how to
generate relevant answers to shoppers’ complex questions about products — a critical
use case that will drive significant benefits by facilitating enablement and better product
discovery.

•2024 will be the year of composable commerce

We’re seeing composable commerce gaining momentum not only in B2C but also in B2B with an increasing number of brands, retailers, and manufacturers shifting away from monolithic commerce platforms to modular, composable services. As we move through 2024, more retailers will lean on composable commerce and the flexibility, agility and support it affords, as well as its ability to transform complex customer journeys into connected experiences across multiple touchpoints.
 
•Retailers will demand measurement in new areas as they eye profitability

B2B and B2C retail brands are looking for ways to measure and understand the real impact of AI. In particular, “de-risking” tech investments has become increasingly important for retailers and will continue to trend in 2024 as more brands looking for ways to experience and measure the potential impact of AI more aggressively than traditional POCs. 

Additionally, retailers are finding that most approaches on the market just add ad hoc business rules on top of underlying search engine and recommendation systems, and this can compromise overall relevance and CX. In 2024, we will see a trend towards multi-objective ranking optimization that will allow retailers better ways to strike a balance between customer experience and KPI optimization in product discovery.
 
•Retailers will continue to struggle with the “cold” shopper problem

With 86% of e-commerce shopping sessions originating from anonymous users, delivering personalized experiences has become increasingly complex and important for brands and retailers, and will remain so next year. Brands will continue to face challenges such as profile data availability, third-party cookie deprecation, lack of user authentication and the inability to recommend products until the “cold start” shopper “warms up.”

In 2024, more retailers will recognize the importance of overcoming the cold start challenge and consider innovative ways to leverage in-session contextual signals for 1:1 personalization.