Current Trends in Retail Industry

This report discusses the current trends in the retail industry, focusing on data-driven retail and the store of the future. It includes an analysis of Boots, a health and beauty retailer, and provides recommendations for the company. The retail sector in the UK is facing challenges due to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Inquiry Project

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
CURRENT TRENDS IN RETAIL INDUSTRY.............................................................................3
Retail industry trends which prominent research...................................................................3
ANALYSIS OF BOOTS.................................................................................................................5
Covered in Appendix 1...........................................................................................................5
RECOMMENDATION...................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX 1...................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Retail industry is a business segment in which organisations deals in bulk goods where the
purchase products in bulk from wholesalers and make sales to the end consumer and earn their
profits. In simple words retailer is a business organisation in which they works as a medium
between the wholesaler and the ultimate consumers where the retailers make sales of goods to
the customers according to their needs and earn a respective percentage of profits. Retailer
satisfies the demand of customers as they conduct market research and thoroughly understand
and determined means of people and make use of appropriate supply chain to render goods
people. In this report Boots UK Limited is chosen which is a health and beauty retailer and
pharmacy chain in the united kingdoms. The organisation was founded in 1849 by John boot and
headquartered in in England, UK. Organisation also deals in international market such as
Thailand, Norway, Netherlands and Republic of Ireland. This project current trends in retail
industry is identified with the help of secondary research. a questionnaire is used for collecting
primary data in relation with Boots and its market analysis. Moreover, appropriate steps for
growth and recommendations are given to the company (Geraldi and Söderlund, 2018).
CURRENT TRENDS IN RETAIL INDUSTRY
Retail industry trends which prominent research.
Retail industry is a wide business segment which holds numerous opportunities and business
ideas for the interested parties and entities. The retail sector of the UK is currently fluctuating
and very unpredictable due to rapid changes taking place in the economy as the impacts of
BREXIT and COVID-19. The whole world is suffering from covid-19 and it is negatively
affecting to all the organisations and economies in different geographical locations as the
businesses and all industries are not in functioning as people are not allowed to even leave their
houses as a safety measure to fight this deadly disease named as coronavirus or COVID-19 (Ng
and Adnan, 2018). The retail sector of the UK economy is affected negatively but also have
some positive impacts. The current trends of the retail industry in the UK is very fluctuating and
speedily changing due to unpredictable working environment and working conditions (Butler-
Kisber, 2018). Few current trends which are running in the retail sector of the UK are as follows:
 Data driven retail- The retailers retainers has the opportunity and gets full value of the
enormous data they have about the customers nowadays. The Retailers works together in

order to create and execute strategies using the data from all touchpoints that anticipate
customer needs and make their shopping faster and experience curated and easier. A data
driven retail means businesses are measuring everything in the organisation and all the
data they have which is measurable, this is done for determining how the data maths to
business objectives and delivery higher value to all the customers and end users (Irwin
and et. al., 2018). This is the current trend which is flourishing in the retail industry and
mostly in the pharmaceutical and beauty sector as the businesses and retailers creates and
execute strategies using data from all different areas which helps them to anticipate and
identify customer needs and providing them better shopping experiences which is unique
and separate from others (Thacker and et. al., 2018).
 Store of future- The use of technology and digitalization is regularly increasing I’m
becoming the day today part of life of individuals. Technology is evolving on regular
basis which is contributing a very large portion to the retail sector also. Advanced
technology and digital tools are used by the stores and retailers in their organisations for
conducting business activities and for delivering the best quality goods and services to
the customers at the time there any actors and they desire particular goods and service.
Digital offerings have reached expectations of customers while there enters the surgical
store of the retailer (Schnellert, Fisher and Sanford, 2018). The retailers work with the
motive of reimagining the end to end journey of old particular customers across the
digital and in-store experiences to enhance the engagement self-service and check outs.
These technologies and digital media is also becoming a very potential source of
marketing, which is one of the most important tool for a retail store. A Retailer is always
required to keep the customers and general public informed about their offerings which is
part of their marketing strategy. Digital tools and advanced technology is becoming a
very important and essential part of marketing strategy of all retailers and it is one of the
most preferred source as it is very cheap and less time consuming (Song, 2018).

ANALYSIS OF BOOTS
Covered in Appendix 1
RECOMMENDATION
According to the current market trends and of the retail industry and the data collected from
primary and secondary sources few recommendations and suggestions to Boots Store are as
follows:
 The first and foremost suggestion which is very important for roots is to maintain all the
hygiene and cleanliness in the stores by looking at the current situation of the economy
and the world as the outbreak of covid-19 is very dangerous and infectious (Cadwallader-
Staub, 2018). Therefore the storage needs to maintain some basic hygiene regulations so
that the people and customers visiting the stores and not feeling any problems and timely
receiving all the goods and products required by them for their health and other designers
(Ješková, Balogová and Kireš, 2018).
 It is also suggested to Boots organisation that the increasing technological and
digitalization enhances their abilities in chances to make use of these techniques and tools
for conducting effective marketing and promotional activities (Rish and Cun, 2018).
Therefore it is suggested to boots that they should invest more in these digital
technologies for improving their marketing and promotions they conduct in the market
for attracting and increasing their customer base(Johnson and et. al., 2019). Marketing is
one of the most essential activity of a retail store and therefore it is very important for
Boot store to make use of changing market condition and business environment and
become adaptable to the increasing digitalization. The organisation should make use of
updated technologies and processes for its reduction services and attracting more in more
customers for changing them into potential buyers (Guzmán and et. al., 2018).
CONCLUSION
The above report concludes that retail industry is huge platform which is available for
organisations and different businesses in the marketplace. The retail industry in the UK is
currently facing the impacts of BREXIT and outbreak of COVID-19. Current trends of the retail
sector is fluctuating and unpredictable but it is very obvious that the BREXIT brings many

opportunities also for the businesses in the UK and specially for the retail sector. One of the
biggest opportunity which is present in front of the retailers and other business organisations is
of training and utilising talents and expertise of domestic labour force. This will help retailers to
reduce employment cost as the domestic labour is easily available and also cheaper than
International employees.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Butler-Kisber, L., 2018. Qualitative inquiry: Thematic, narrative and arts-based perspectives.
Sage.
Cadwallader-Staub, M. R., 2018. Master's Project: Examining Equity and Emergence: Personal
Inquiry and Practice.
Carr, C., 2018. Ethics and Moral Issues Oral Inquiry and Problem Solving Research Project: Oral
Presentation (Step 3)[Philosophy].
Dubé, K. and et. al., 2018. “We Need to Deploy Them Very Thoughtfully and Carefully”:
Perceptions of analytical treatment interruptions in HIV cure research in the United
States—A qualitative inquiry. AIDS research and human retroviruses. 34(1). pp.67-79.
Flyvbjerg, B. and Budzier, A., 2018. Report for the Commission of Inquiry Respecting the
Muskrat Falls Project. Available at SSRN 3251965.
Geraldi, J. and Söderlund, J., 2018. Project studies: What it is, where it is going. International
Journal of Project Management. 36(1) pp.55-70.
Guzmán, S. A. and et. al., 2018. Information Systems and their Effect on Organizational
Performance: An Inquiry into Job Satisfaction and Commitment in Higher Education
Institutions. Journal of Information Systems Engineering & Management. 3(4). p.26.
Irwin, R. L. and et. al., 2018. A/r/tography as Living Inquiry. Handbook of arts-based research,
pp.37-53.
Ješková, Z., Balogová, B. and Kireš, M., 2018, September. Assessing inquiry skills of upper
secondary school students. In Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1076, No. 1,
p. 012022). IOP Publishing.
Johnson, L. and et. al., 2019. Project-Based Inquiry (PBI) Global in Kindergarten Classroom:
Inquiring About the World. Early Childhood Education Journal. 47(5). pp.607-613.
Ng, C. H. and Adnan, M., 2018, January. Integrating STEM education through Project-Based
Inquiry Learning (PIL) in topic space among year one pupils. In IOP Conference Series:
Materials Science and Engineering (Vol. 296, No. 1, p. 012020). IOP Publishing.
Oliver, C., 2018. Reflexive inquiry: A framework for consultancy practice. Routledge.
Pelias, R. J., 2018. Performative inquiry: Embodiment and its challenges. In Writing
Performance, Identity, and Everyday Life (pp. 21-30). Routledge.
Rish, R. and Cun, A., 2018. Co-Navigating Mobilized Student Inquiry Across Multiple Contexts.
International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.[ISLS]..
Schnellert, L., Fisher, P. and Sanford, K., 2018. Developing communities of pedagogical inquiry
in British Columbia. In Networks for Learning (pp. 56-74). Routledge.
Song, Y., 2018. Improving primary students’ collaborative problem solving competency in
project-based science learning with productive failure instructional design in a seamless
learning environment. Educational Technology Research and Development. 66(4).
pp.979-1008.
Thacker, E. S. and et. al., 2018. Secondary social studies teachers’ experiences planning and
implementing inquiry using the inquiry design model. The Clearing House: A Journal
of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas. 91(4-5). pp.193-200.

APPENDIX 1
BOOTS
Student name: XXXX XXX
ID Number: XXXXX
Module Number: FY 028
Face to Face Questionnaire
1. How many people coming to buy Boots product every day?
o 10-20
o 20-50
o 50-100
When is the busy time and why?
Approximately around 50 to 100 people come to buy boots product everyday. The busiest
time of the stores is in the morning from 10 to 12 and in the evening from 5 to 8. This is
because it is is the normal office timings well individuals plans to complete there purchase
on the way to the office or going back home.
2. How many min/hours people spend in this store every day?
o 5-10 min
o 10-20 min
o 20-60 min
Which product they usually buying?
Around 20 to 60 minutes are spend by people and customers in the stores of boots while
the visit Store. This is because sometimes the customer specifically wants their preferred
products and sometimes they a shop in the store while according to their preference and
select goods while roaming in the stores. The very common product which is the most and
the best seller of Boots is there medicines, other pharmaceutical products and beauty
products.

3. How people see Boots Pharmacy?
o Useful
o Less useful
o Not Useful
What type of NHS services, Boots have?
For The customers of boots pharmacy it is a very useful Store for them as they receive all
the important medicines of all types in one place and they do not need to around from place
to place for different medications. The energy services which are offered by boots are NHS
health check service, NHS discharge medicine review service, NHS minor alignment
scheme, NHS new medicine service and NHS medicine check-up service.
4. How would you handle an angry costumer? What is the process?
All customers are very different from one another are required to be treated in a unit and
separate manner for rendering them best experience of shopping with the store. Therefore
an angry customer is also very important for the organisation as any bad comment about
the organisation can hinder its image and Goodwill in the marketplace. The store managers
and other employees are well prepared and trained for such situations. While handling an
angry customer either the sales executive try to provide them there uh respective solution
to the problem or if the do not hold that much power and authority we have to report to
their store manager who is then responsible for resolving all the queries and problems of
the customers and provide them with the best solution so that they leave the store as an
happy and satisfied customer.
5. How people see the advantage card? What is advantage card?
Abe boots advantage card lets customers and shoppers collect four points for every £1
spent and every point is a worth of a penny. Boots advantage card is basically a privilege

and benefit provided to the regular customers of the store in order to keep them motivated
and retain them for the longer period. Boot advantage card is very beneficial for the uses
and specially those who are regular customers of the entity buying products on daily basis
from the Boots stores.
6. When Boots have the best promotion for product?
o Springtime/Easter
o Summertime
o Mother/Father Day
o Wintertime
o Every Month
What type of promotion?
Boots promote its products and services on regular basis and every month. That means the
promotional and marketing activities which are conducted by boots for those things are
very e efficient and regular. According to the current trends organisation make use of
digital marketing tools for promoting and informing its customers about the new and
existing products which are being introduce and offered by the retail stores.
Family, Friends Questionnaire
1. How likely are you recommend this store to others?
o Good
o Good offers
Good
2. What is the best product for you, from Boots?
The pharmacy is very attractive and very beneficial for me as the medicines which I
require are always available in the stores. Along with it the online services which are
rendered by the retail store is also very impressive and efficient.

3. What do you think about staff? Why?
The staff of Boots are very humble and productive they are well trained and very well
know how to communicate with customers and how to deal with their problems. Along
with the employees of all different stores of boots are working with the same policies and
with the same attitude of serving and providing best experience to all customers visiting the
stores.
4. How many times in one month, you visit Boots?
I am regular customer of Boots and approximately visits 10 or 12 times a month to its
stores for collecting my medicines and other beauty products which I need for my I regular
hygiene and maintenance.
5. Which type of product you use from Boots? How is the quality?
I mostly by medicines and beauty products from boots and I am regular customer. The
quality of the goods and services offered by boots are very e good and efficient I have
never faced any problems or complaint with the products I bought from boots stores.
6. Did you find any expired product at Boots? What you did?
I had never received any expired products from visiting the retail store of boots and I have
also never heard of any such cases where customers are being receiving any wrong or
outdate goods.