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W hen we take a lo ok at how the publicly traded footwear and apparel companies performed during the Holiday 2024 sales season, early data on the period suggests a late, 10-day buying frenzy by consumers looking for deals and capitalizing on retail promotions pushed overall sales above market expectations. Year-over-year Holiday 2024 sales rose by 3.8 percent. Online sales between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 rose by 6.9 percent while in-store sales increased by 2.9 percent over the same period, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse data. Seasonal apparel sales increased by 3.6 percent. With the important Q4 retail period behind us, attention is on developing trends for 2025. It should be noted that global retail sales are forecast to hit $24.9 trillion in 2025 with online sales accounting for 21 percent, or $5.3 trillion of the total. Here are some of the prognostications we uncovered from the likes of eMarketer, Globalpayments, Salesforce and others. • Retailers will build shopping agents for consumers. • 'Gamification' will become a key component of loyalty programs. • An estimated 1 in 5 retailers will launch generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications for customers. • GenAI, a type of artificial intelligence that creates content by learning patterns from existing data, will work with predictiveAI to accelerate the development of new products and will tap into pop culture indicators to predict future trends. • Retailers will explore creative, new ways to reach Gen Z consumers, who may want tailored recommendations. • Higher wages and lower purchasing power from these higher price tags will translate into a greater need for tech solutions to provide a strong level of service. • Overall retail will become less about transactions and more about boosting engagement with shoppers. • More retailers will make incremental gains on product gross margins through more precise inventory and assortment planning. • ere will be greater utilization of in- store retail media with the overall in-store retail spend expected to hit more than $1 billion by 2028. • More retailers and other businesses are moving toward unified commerce platforms to integrate their backend operations given more customers desire seamless digital shopping experiences. • More businesses are looking to their point-of-sale systems to help improve operations, gather data and deliver better customer experiences. n WHAT'S AHEAD FOR RETAIL IN 2025? 4 • January/February 2025 sportstyle • sportstylemag.com NEWS & ANALYSIS WITH THE IMPORTANT Q4 RETAIL PERIOD BEHIND US, ATTENTION HAS ALREADY TURNED TO DEVELOPING TRENDS FOR 2025.

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