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2 Jul 2025

MPs have called on Amazon and eBay to tighten controls after e-bikes and chargers flagged as serious fire risks were found for sale on their platforms.

25 Jun 2025

The E-Bike Positive campaign has seen major success in the first half of 2025, with its message reaching nearly 8 million people across the UK through high-profile media coverage and growing...

20 Jun 2025

The House of Commons Business and Trade Committee has asked the ACT, and its parent company Bira, to help them reach out to small business retailers across the country, for their quick input on...

20 Jun 2025

Activate Cycle Academy has reopened its Cytech training facility in Darlington, offering a full range of courses from Home Mechanic up to Cytech Technical Three.
 

18 Jun 2025

The Association of Cycle Traders believes the time has come for greater accountability throughout our supply chain, writes ACT Director Jonathan Harrison in an article published for BikeBiz.

16 Jun 2025

The ACT has welcomed the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking's report "Unregulated and Unsafe: The Threat of Illegal E-Bikes", which calls for urgent Government action to...

11 Jun 2025

A new academic study has found that overzealous pro-cycling campaigners on social media may be inadvertently damaging the case for better cycling infrastructure across the UK.

11 Jun 2025

Bira has welcomed the Welsh Government's consultation on business rate reforms for retail shops, whilst calling for significant improvements to ensure the proposals truly support high street...

10 Jun 2025

Bike thefts across England and Wales have continued their steady decline, according to new data released by cycle insurance specialist Bikmo.

9 Jun 2025

Retailers on Britain's high streets are being encouraged to put themselves forward for the first-ever Love Your High Street Awards, designed to celebrate the small businesses that bring...

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Retail Think Tank outlines key growth opportunities for 2024

Posted on in Business News , Cycles News

With the UK economy set to tread water in 2024, the KPMG/RetailNext Retail Think Tank (RTT), an independent board of retail experts, expects this will impact growth within the retail sector.

Retail

The RTT’s latest quarterly whitepaper – Retail outlook for 2024: What are the opportunities for retailers in a year of stagnation? – sets out its 2024 retail outlook, and includes key growth predictions, including re-invigorated retail formats and innovation trends, as well as its forecast for category winners and losers and predictions for the year ahead.

With monetary and fiscal policy remaining a dead weight on the UK economy in 2024, the RTT report highlights several challenges that will impact retailers into 2024.  These include rising cost pressures on their businesses, including National Living Wage and Business Rate rises; weakened consumer demand due to the ongoing squeeze on households through higher interest rate mortgage refixing for homeowners or rising rent costs for renters, wage growth rising against static tax brackets, and household debt servicing costs.

As reported by The Retail Bulletin, despite these challenges, the RTT predicts several growth opportunities in 2024, including: exploring growth models, such as retail media, or adopting platform business models following the success of Next and M&S and reassessing asset classes, such as retail park settings; investment in tech, including Gen AI, as well as innovating across commercial functions and the supply chain; tapping into new growth cohorts of consumers and moving away from a GenZ focus to acquire and retain older, more affluent consumers.

When it came to its property outlook, the RTT expects retail parks to become the standout retail setting in terms of growth, predicted to improve relative to other assets classes, such as High Street and Shopping Centres.

Outside of retail park success, bricks-and-mortar will see a renaissance in 2024, the RTT predicts, driven in part by consumer demand as well as revenue driving opportunities.

Retailers should also ensure that economic stagnation doesn’t stifle innovation, according to RTT Co-Chair and KPMG’s Head of Retail, Paul Martin: “Even if the economic outlook remains muted, one thing history teaches us is that following a downturn we often experience an upturn, and retailers should be doing everything now to prepare for this.”

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