Implementation
To create the content, we used our Lean Futures Creation Toolkit, a comprehensive set of tools and templates that guided the participants in understanding how things can change and what opportunities different futures can bring. We chose the most central ideas and PESTLE-analyzed them. Next, we formulated key topics and put them in a futures chart and created different future scenarios based on the alternatives. The four scenarios include creating live shopping experiences with influencers, developing optimized groceries-as-a-service systems, managing the politically torn consumer base, and restructuring services through digital twins.
For each scenario, we storified the lives of future consumers in 2030: a social media influencer using augmented reality to point customers to his portfolio products in local shops, a breast cancer survivor giving sensitive data to get goods delivered to her home, a senior nurse working remotely and letting the system make the ethical decisions for her, and a doctoral student building a digital twin of a shopping mall in a suspicious world where paying is based on face-recognition. The main trends related to each scenario are also mentioned in the stories. Based on the scenarios, we identified the most significant future trends.
The Future of Retail 2030 website was designed to be both simple and functional, with content playing a primary role. It represents the possible futures, including fictional brands, stories, and characters, in a way people can relate to it.