We had a hugely successful Retail Hive Live 2018 at 30 Euston Square, London which focused on all aspects of Retail Fulfilment; from Prof. Jeremy Wyatt talking about how robotics and AI can help the industry at all levels, to our Chairman Ian Howes, Supply Development & Imports Director at Sainsbury’s Argos discussing the need for a ‘supply chain rebrand’ to attract new tech-savvy talent.

Ian also urged retailers to continue to connect with customers, despite the fact that nearly all aspects of fulfilment are highly digitised, saying “the human touch is just as important as technology – we still want to talk to and connect with our customers along their journey. Technology shouldn’t take away from this; it should enhance it.”

Below are just some of the takeaways from our Retail Hive members which are featured in our post-meeting report available to download.

  1. Managing the last mile experience requires flexibility and full understanding of your customer’s expectations regardless of whether you retain full control or outsource
  2. Returns must be part of your customer proposition  being such an emotive experience; this applies to your international as well as your domestic market
  3. For the Pureplay retailer,  does the simplicity and cost-saving of Click & Collect outweigh the complexity of home-delivery?
  4. You should take an interactive approach to AI and machine learning;  more data leads to better results but you also must be reactive, trust the data and learn to fail fast!
  5. Robotics in retail is now much more accessible due to the rapid pace of change in the technology and ability to  have bespoke and modular robotic solutions
  6. To deliver omnichannel we need to think of our stores as warehouses, with the same system and space issues that warehouses have

A huge thanks to our valuable partners and to all our Retail Hive members for their candid contributions and unwavering energy.

We look forward to seeing many of our members at our next Retail Hive Live in London, Collboration for Innovation on 25th September 2018.