Zebra: 2021 Store Operations Benchmark Survey

Industry experts always stress how important speed, agility, and flexibility are to retail success, but those words apply more to e-commerce than to brick-and-mortar stores. But 2021, like 2020 before it, is the year when the usual “rules” simply don’t apply.

Brick-and-mortar store operators have had to find ways to reopen shuttered stores and then scramble to find enough employees to staff those stores in a suddenly tight labor market. Meanwhile, the surge in e-commerce brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has made the integration of digital stores the biggest store operations challenge facing retailers. Affected by recent coronavirus variants, consumers (and employees) are concerned about in-store safety and sanitation. In addition, different local mask and vaccination requirements continue to make physical retail operations face a complicated reality.

The survey reveals retailers’ resilience in the face of these challenges and the many ways they are using technology solutions and process changes to overcome them.

The survey of 151 retailers operating physical stores showed that just over half (52%) closed some or all of their stores due to the pandemic. But by the end of 2020, 45% of retailers had reopened most of their stores.

In 2021, 60% of respondents reported an increase in hours spent on store-based delivery, including BOPIS, curbside pickup and ship from store.

27% of retailers operate cashierless or unmanned stores, representing a significant penetration of a technology that has only been commercialized in the last few years.

Retailers’ use of augmented reality/virtual reality is also growing rapidly in 2021 compared to 2020. 22% of retailers are using AR/VR solutions in their stores this year, compared to just 13% in 2020.