2025's tech outlook for enterprise retail

This article is provided by BRC Associate Member, Shopify.

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Overall, 2024 was a pretty tough year for retailers. The weather, the economic challenges and the constant negative news and scandals made it one that many will generally be happy to leave behind.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though - Black Friday Cyber Monday was record breaking. Global sales for brands powered by Shopify reached $11.5 billion, and the UK specifically saw a 36% increase in the number of purchases consumers made from Shopify merchants.

The challenge now for enterprises is to focus on how they can make 2025 more successful. Gaining better scale, greater efficiencies and optimising their operations will be front of mind for many, alongside knitting together all of their data to gain a singular, unified view of the customer.

Many have focused on building complex, bespoke systems on which to operate their commerce stack. But, to future-proof their organisation, they need to pivot to those approaches that will enable their business to be more agile, especially in light of the continued economic uncertainty. While many already have at least some of the tools and technologies in place to accelerate growth, there are three overarching strategies that enterprises should consider in 2025.

Proactively engage with the changing state of commerce

Commerce is changing quickly and drastically. For example, our recent Holiday Retail research showed that consumers are continuously changing how and where they shop. Just under half (44%) of British consumers planned to evenly split their shopping online and offline, with 59% buying small things online but going into stores for larger purchases and 61% searching for items online before going in-store to get them. With consumers shopping in a range of settings, enterprise retailers need a strategy that aligns and fully integrates their business across multiple surfaces.

That’s not the only challenge enterprises face. Increasing expectation of AI built into the shopping experience, faster checkouts and greater personalisation all require financial and time investments that enterprises could struggle to keep pace with. And for those operating B2B businesses, the complexity grows as buyers demand a D2C-like experience while still maintaining some of the vital processes unique to B2B, such as quoting and invoicing functions.

While many enterprises will certainly be aware of the changing state of commerce, acting on it fast is much more difficult. However, if they can proactively implement new strategies and technologies that enable them to be more agile, they will be well placed to succeed. Thankfully, they already have one of the most important assets at their disposal that smaller businesses cannot compete on, data.

Achieve a single view of the customer

Many enterprises will already have lots of data relating to their customers, such as shopping history, interests and key moments like birthdays. However, that is typically stored in silos which different teams will not necessarily have access to. It hampers communication internally, impacts a business’ ability to present itself holistically and can lead to disjointed customer experiences. Some enterprises have been able to knit together their data to elevate their operations, though often with significant investment to rebuild their own in-house solutions. This needs to change.

With shopping experiences increasingly starting and ending on separate surfaces, 2025 is the opportune moment for enterprises to embrace unified commerce. Unlike omnichannel, which can offer some insights into cross-channel shopping habits, unified commerce enables businesses to gain a single view of the customer across the entirety of their data by linking all of their sales channels and operational insights together into a centralised platform.

By having one view of the customer, unified commerce can support enterprises’ cost efficiency goals too, including reducing customer acquisition costs and data maintenance. To say that harnessing unified commerce should be a top priority for every enterprise in 2025 is no understatement.

Drive loyalty through community

Implementing unified commerce in 2025, and the insight it provides, could be a key loyalty driver for enterprises that brings moments of delight to customers. This goes beyond simply offering discount codes on their birthdays to create experiences that keep bringing consumers back.

To really succeed in 2025, businesses need to explore how they can build communities, so that consumers are not just engaging with the brand for a transaction. Instead, they can use the brand to connect with similar people, or to align with the brand’s mission.

One retailer that is successfully building communities is Gymshark. Going beyond its online or physical presence, it has built an app that focuses on health and well-being for users, such as free workouts. But that’s not all. There are online competitions, running clubs and more. It is a tool that creates value outside of the direct brand to help consumers connect with it and each other. While the revenue opportunities obviously do exist, it is not front and centre, making it a powerful mechanism to drive engagement and long term loyalty. Enterprises need to emulate this form of brand build en masse if they’re to increase loyalty over the long term.

Breaking down the barriers to growth

2025 could be a strong growth year for those retailers bold enough to embrace it. The key to unlocking this potential lies in shifting to a unified commerce model – helping to dismantle the outdated silos within the organisation and fostering effective collaboration across your teams. The barriers between online and offline platforms must also be dismantled if enterprises are to deliver the seamless experience that today's consumers demand.

Fail to act, and competitors who dared to innovate will surge ahead. But the rewards of action will be significant in growing loyalty, reducing costs and ultimately increasing sales. The choice ahead this year is clear: adapt and thrive, or cling to the status quo and stagnate. The time to decide is now.