Big Questions: PMG’s State of Retail Report with Analyst Emma Mikulecky

For this edition of PMG’s Big Questions, we spoke with Emma Mikulecky about her role in PMG’s latest thought leadership, The Evolved Retail Landscape Report. Mikulecky is a senior strategic analyst at PMG, where she transforms data into actionable insights that drive brand strategy, media planning, and creative development. With seven years of industry experience, she’s partnered with leading brands like Best Western and Kohler, utilizing her expertise in consumer and market research to uncover valuable insights.

PMG’s Evolved Retail Landscape Report is a deep dive into the changes shaking up the retail industry based on a survey our team conducted earlier this summer that included over 2,100 American consumers. The report gives us a clear picture of how economic uncertainties and shifting consumer behaviors are influencing the market while also highlighting some great opportunities for retailers’ strategic growth.

Despite the challenges of inflation and increasing debt, there’s an optimistic forecast for growth across retail categories. However, while consumers continue to shop, they’re becoming much more value-conscious, relying heavily on promotions and finding the best deals. Seasonal and back-to-school sales will be crucial for retailers, and we can undoubtedly expect another early holiday shopping season.

When we examined the 2024 retail consumer, we found that product discovery still remains a deeply personal exchange (i.e., talking with friends or discovering it themselves in stores), though it’s important that retailers don’t overlook video content, like TikTok and YouTube, and emerging platforms, like Substack, for recommendations. 

It’s also important to note that in-store shopping is still very much alive. It is a crucial experience for shoppers to conveniently grab their goods, find new trends, act quickly on sales, and evaluate quality. 

From a media and marketing perspective, retailers must adopt full-funnel, omnichannel strategies that reach consumers at all stages of their journey and test emerging tactics in the lower funnel to capture new audiences. To continue this momentum, retailers also need to future-proof their loyalty strategies, utilizing AI to increase personalization and capture attention. 

More than half of those younger than 35 are active on social shops like Instagram Shop and TikTok Shop. The most cited reason for this was because of the convenience factor of the platforms: seamless checkout process (49%) and purchase immediacy (51%). Retailers should take this into account when optimizing their ecommerce strategies. Even if retailers aren’t interested in selling merchandise on Instagram or TikTok, evaluating and adjusting the checkout process for the convenience offered by these platforms can make a major impact on sales. Convenience is massively important to shoppers, and that won’t go away anytime soon.

I expect to see more advanced integrated omnichannel tech solutions, especially based on AI, come to the forefront. Again, convenience is key for consumers, and they still want to shop in-store, so any solution that provides real-time store inventory updates via retailer apps will be massive with the Gen Z demographic. In our survey, 49% said limited availability and inventory forces them to shop online. We’ve seen large retailers like Target and Walmart do this successfully, so it's time smaller specialty retailers invest in the technology to provide a more seamless experience for shoppers as well.

I was surprised to see Amazon Storefronts emerge as a key influential platform for product discovery (37%). We typically expect video-focused platforms like TikTok (33%) or YouTube (36%) to top the list, but Amazon coming out on top demonstrates the impact of influencers’ recommendations as well as the seamless checkout experience found on Amazon, allowing shoppers to jump from storefront to product reviews, to “add to cart” within seconds. 

Download PMG’s Evolved Retail Landscape Report to get all the insights and strategic recommendations from Emma and the rest of the PMG team.