Retail Matters Podcast: Navigating the New Retail Landscape in 2025: The Sales Associate

Now that the post-pandemic flurry of customers returning to stores has begun to cool, in-store sales growth is forecast to be around 1 to 2 percent on average across key markets in 2025, compared to the last few years of high single-digit to double-digit growth.

This normalization comes as store foot traffic is approaching pre-pandemic levels across regions. Some markets like continental Europe anticipated surpassing their pre-pandemic offline market size in 2024.

However, the role of the store has evolved globally. It is estimated that almost 70 percent of retail sales today are digitally influenced, making stores more of a destination for conversion and building brand loyalty than initial discovery. 54 percent of apparel shoppers say they prefer to buy clothing in brick-and-mortar locations versus online.

As store growth decelerates, retailers will need to further differentiate their store experience from the competition to convert customers in stores. While retailers have been focused on delivering digital innovations in store, in doing so they have deprioritized some of the basics that shoppers returned to stores for in the first place, such as the human side of sales.