Biggest Challenges Facing Retailers in 2022

We kicked off 2022 with a webinar on eCommerce, PPC and SEO - and discussed how your business could benefit from a little TLC on each of these.

We sent a general poll to all our lovely viewers to find out where they think their business stands and their goals for business growth.

The year is 2022 and a new year has dawned.

Amazingly, one thing remains the same: retailers are still trying to figure out how to use technology to better serve and connect with their customers. This isn’t so much a new challenge, but the scale of this challenge has changed. For example, 10 years ago retail was so focused on providing quality products at good prices that now they’re trying to figure out how to make their stores fun again.

But you don’t want to read another boring blog post about what retail is doing wrong. Instead, you want to know what they’re doing right! That’s why we’re taking a look back on what happened in 2021 and what lessons we can learn from it, as well as predicting some of the upcoming prospects for 2022.

One of the biggest challenges facing retailers this year is how to scale their business. It’s not enough to just be “successful.” Everyone is looking to scale up. Some people are in better positions than others to do so. Both types of people are coming to webinars like ours to find techniques and methods of achieving this goal.

With lockdowns and COVID making it much harder for businesses to stay afloat these past few years, it’s more important than ever to make sure your business has a strong eCommerce strategy that will pull you through any challenges you might face. 

Businesses aren’t so crazy about data - but should they be?

Business reports are valuable and essential tools for any enterprise regardless of size or industry. They provide a means to track and analyse the performance and overall health of the business while identifying areas for improvement and opportunities for growth.

Melanie @ unleashedsoftware.com (2019)

Only a mere 12% of the businesses we spoke to admitted they were happy with the status of their tracking and reporting. 18% of retailers had absolutely no idea what was going on with theirs - but that’s okay! That’s where consultancies like us at Spec Digital can help.

The remaining majority reported that their tracking & reporting was going “okay” - so considering the fact the same group were desperate to grow their business this year this insight was eye-opening!

As I’ve highlighted from Melanie’s (unleashedsoftware.com, 2019) quote above, it’s crucial for your business’ success to be tracking and reporting on how your business is doing. It can also provide fantastic opportunities to see where your business could do better. 

So those we spoke to who were only mildly satisfied with what they’re currently doing would have a clear idea of how to improve this if they had reports pointing them in the right direction.

Understanding the challenges that businesses faced this year will help yours to overcome them.

Marketing seemed to be the most prominent reason at 35% for retail businesses struggling last year. Carolyn Scott from ThinkWithGoogle (2020) reported on this as an inevitability most likely caused by a transformation in consumer behaviour.

As people did (and still do, thanks to the beauty of working from home!) have more time on their hands, trends have been based on building new skills. Interestingly, it’s more popular amongst consumers to subscribe to learning these new skills in more short-term chunks than devoting to annual subscriptions. We could possibly attribute this to rapidly changing restrictions and thus, the mobility of our consumers in the eCommerce space.

In a dynamic environment, advertisers must continually find ways to capture fluctuating demand and derive even more value from their spend.

Carolyn Scott @ ThinkWithGoogle.com (2020)

18% of our webinar audience reported that reviews, content and overall website optimisation were their main struggles for 2021. With restrictions and limited workforce running, it’s understandable that things took a little dip in the market. Our webinar poll resulted in 29% of respondents reporting lockdown and stock issues to be their main challenge last year, which rings true from the other core marketing challenges we’ve highlighted above!

So if you’re in a similar situation to these businesses, don’t get too down-hearted! 

Don’t be afraid to ask some experts for help, too - we’d be happy to help you get back on your feet or even keep you growing at a steady rate if lockdown was actually quite a success for you.

In general, we found that businesses weren’t particularly satisfied with their projected business growth for 2022, and a lot of this could be solved with methods we can advise on as a PPC & SEO consultancy.