COVID upended the way the the retail industry operated in 2020. Now companies are wondering how to operate in a post-pandemic world, and what the role of stores and DC will be in the coming years. Gary Forger, editor-at-large for Modern Materials Handling, posed this question to Bryan Jensen and other industry experts.
The role that stores and DCs will play now and going forward is at the core of how retail is changing. “More than anything else, retailers need to invent in agility,” says Bryan Jensen, chairman and executive vice president at St. Onge. He continues to say that this is not agility at all costs.
“The trick is to decide how much investment is actually needed”, says Jensen. “It isn’t easy to optimize capital expenditures these days because it is so stepwise” With 2020 in the rearview mirror, he looks at 2021 as a hybrid year with vaccines opening up many aspects of life in the second half of the year. This will, in turn, affect retail patterns that will change again as we enter 2022.
“Ultimately, retailers are trying to make good software and equipment decisions that will peak when retails patterns level out and become more predictable.
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