About Howard Saunders

The Retail Futurist, otherwise known as Howard Saunders, is a writer and speaker whose job it is to see beyond retail’s currently choppy waters. Howard spent the first twenty five years of his career at some of London’s most renowned retail design agencies, including Fitch & Company, where he created concepts, strategies and identities for dozens of British high street brands. In 2003 he founded trend-hunting agency, Echochamber, inspiring his clients with new and innovative store designs from across the globe. Howard relocated to New York in 2012 where the energetic regeneration of Brooklyn inspired his book, Brooklynization, published in 2017. His newfound role as champion for retail’s future in our town and city centres gave rise to the title The Retail Futurist. Howard has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs and podcasts for BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, the British Retail Consortium, Sky News Australia and TVNZ, New Zealand. His talks are hi-energy, jargon-free journeys that explore the exciting, if not terrifying, retail landscape that lies ahead. When not in retail mode, Howard has recorded, literally, thousands of digital music masterpieces, most of which remain, thankfully, unheard.

THE INSUFFERABLES

I’m sure you will recognise us. We are the lip syncers and the lycra-clad gym barbies that demand your attention every morning. We are the cop provocateurs and the speed junkies that beg you to wince in empathy. We are the tree huggers, the matrix dwellers and the needy, pleady marathon runners, fundraisers and sponsored chuggers that replenish your daily dose of guilt. We are the fluorescent yoga exhibitionists and gyrating gen-zedders here to make you feel old and impotent. Over-inked and under-educated we are the botoxed banshees squealing in your notifications. We are cyan haired, gender challenged, chromosome deniers…and we are proud. We are fictionally cleavaged augmentation addicts. We are the midriff cavorting milfs with bovine lashes and matching IQs. We are filtered freaks flaunting lips bee-stung to bursting with monosyllabic exuberance. But above all, we are do-gooders and doom-mongers: both virtual and virtuous with lungs so ballooned with hubris that the end of the world simply must coincide with our own fleeting, meaningless existence. Yes, four and a half billion years of planet earth comes to an end just as we show up. How crazy is that!

Welcome to TikTok. I knew you’d recognise us. You’ve seen us on your daily, no..hourly, twelve bore shot in the face of everything wrong with the West. (Is that the CCP I hear chuckling in the distance?)

How did we get here I hear you ask. Well, we drank the elixir: a cocktail we call Apocalypse on the Rocks. It’s a simple recipe: take a couple of world wars, add a generous glug of rock ’n roll (any youth culture will do) and whisk it to a crazy froth with the iPhone (other brands work, but the original is best). It’s a long, deliciously addictive drink that’s a bit like Ahahuasca in that you instantly become one with every atom in the known universe. It genuinely feels as if the Earth is revolving around your head. No one else’s, just yours. You may even shed a tear knowing that you are a child of the last remaining traditional binary parents before the age of the Great Entitlement arrived. 

The old fashioned concept of truth simply evaporates. Your eyes are opened to personal truths, like the 57 varieties of gender nobody mentioned previously and that deep down you always knew you were a little bit special. Without truth, you see, there can be no delusion. Join us and your superpower will be the knowledge that everything that came before the Great Entitlement was racist, transphobic and utterly irrelevant. Perhaps best of all, our elixir not only opens your eyes, it closes your ears. No need to listen to the olds ever again. 

Stick with us and you’ll get high on knowing that although there is no god, if one did exist it would probably be you. That’s how powerful we are. Together, we crystallise the understanding that the planet is crying out for help and it’s down to us, not to save it as such, but to let everyone know what we know. There’s no time for discussion or pointless debate. That’s why I sloshed five litres of Desert Sunrise vinyl silk over the Bentley showroom. We communicate in B&Q colours now. Talk certainly isn’t cheap.

Western governments and Silicon Valley are absolutely seething. Just as we’d settled comfortably into the idea that a benign partnership of Big Tech and the Big State would run everything forever, along comes TikTok to set light to an entire generation.

If you are one of the Unentitled, oh how we pity you. Perhaps you are hoping your children are simply ‘going through a phase’ or taking an angry, but understandable, post lockdown kick at the shins of the establishment. Fraid not.

TikTok is mere kindling for the fire that is yet to engulf this planet. Very soon we will be every child, every friend, every neighbour and every customer for the next quarter of a century.

We are the Insufferables. Not only will you recognise us, you will learn to live with us.

Join me on Twitter @retailfuturist for profound insight and newsy nonsense

  Howard Saunders   Apr 04, 2023   Uncategorized   0 Comment   Read More

REALITY CHECK

Is all this talk of ChatGPT, artificial intelligence, drones and robots giving you a headache? Maybe you’re convinced your kids will soon be moving to the Metaverse with Mark Zuckerberg and you’re wondering if you’ll ever see them again. And if you’re in retail, well you’d be forgiven for thinking the entire industry is winding down ready to hand over the keys to smiling Jeff Bezos.

The world has become so confusing, the future so scary it’s amazing that any of us bother to get out of bed in the morning. Listen to a couple of TedTalks or browse a few LinkedIn articles, by way of staying ahead of the game, and it’s as if they’re talking another language. They are. Tech geeks get turned on by excluding ordinary humans from their nerdy prognostications.

Cut through the jargon however, and it’s clear there’s a push for a future in which humanity takes a backseat. This is understandable when you consider that mankind is the source of most our problems, however that does not mean all these techno-predictions will come true. This headlong rush for the future is surely fuelled by a dislike and distrust of the present. Whether it’s robotics, smart cities, fake meat, autonomous vehicles or the much hyped Metaverse, it’s clear we’re designing ourselves a future that diminishes us. A future in which, out of guilt, we pass the baton to technology to rule over a world with barely a trace of us in it.

I blame science fiction. We’ve imagined ourselves living in glass domes, being waited on by robots for almost a hundred years. Way back in 1930, Einstein’s superhuman intellect predicted mankind would soon be overtaken by machines, leaving humanity as “a generation of idiots.” That’s a century of fear mongering and yet, when Elon Musk unveiled his billion dollar Optimus robot in September last year, the reception was notably underwhelming: a teetering, tin humanoid staggered on and off stage like a cautious drunk. A drunk, incidentally, that couldn’t begin to contemplate a small flight of stairs. These then, are the Daleks that in 2019 the mighty Mckinsey warned would destroy 800 million jobs by 2030. Well, they’d better hurry up.

So enamoured are we with the future, we wilfully ignore the smirking elephant in the room that knows the robotic revolution is a long, long way off. Whether it’s fake meat, the rise of rental culture, the internet of things or 3D printing, it seems the future we promise ourselves keeps getting kicked further down the road.

Even long proven technology comes unstuck in the cold light of day. Drone deliveries, for example, life saving in rural environments are utterly hopeless in our busy, high-rise cities. Likewise, autonomous cars may be the future in linear Los Angeles but they don’t look so clever trying to navigate the pot holes, roadworks and tangled lanes of most European cities.  

But hey, we’ve just emerged from a uniquely comprehensive global experiment and the results are now in. After two years of being locked indoors…wait for it… it turns out the vast majority of us want to get out and mix with other humans after all! The evidence is clear: we prefer to visit shops and restaurants than swiping endlessly through Amazon. This explains the dramatic surge in events, parties, celebrations and festivals last year. It seems, given half a chance, we’ll turn up to the opening of an envelope.

And therein lies the secret of great retail. In a world where we can access everything anywhere, retail is no longer about getting hold of ‘stuff’. What really helps us part with our hard earned cash is a place that feels alive and happening, whether it be a bustling bakery or a megabrand flagship.

Thankfully, for us real-world enthusiasts, the future looks safe: Amazon is axing ten thousand staff, Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is bleeding cash, Beyond Meat is bleeding to death and Elon promises Optimus will be able to walk properly very soon.

The Failure of the Metaverse and the Rise of the Real World - Utah Stories

Don’t get me wrong. Technology is sure to reshape our world in bewilderingly beautiful ways. In less than a decade we’ve evolved into a global species of screen addicted voyeurs and needy narcissists. Our attention spans may have shrivelled and our morals evaporated but it’s comforting to know that, at the end of the day, whatever spectacular gizmos they throw at us one thing remains universally true: we still want to hang out with friends, family, peers and colleagues in markets, shops, bars, delis and restaurants just like our digitally deprived ancestors did two millennia ago.

Now peel me a grape.

Join me on Twitter @retailfuturist for profound insight and newsy nonsense

  Howard Saunders   Mar 02, 2023   Uncategorized   0 Comment   Read More

CONvenience (AI Edition)

In this fast-paced world of ours, convenience is king. We want everything now, and we want it easy. We order our groceries online, hail our cabs with a tap on our phones, and have meals delivered to our doorsteps. 

The latest addition to this trend of instant gratification is Amazon’s ‘just walk out’ stores, where shoppers can grab what they need and simply walk out, without having to stop and pay at a traditional checkout.

But, my dear friends, let us not forget that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. The constant pursuit of convenience can lead to a life that is shallow and devoid of adventure. We are so used to having everything handed to us on a silver platter that we forget the joy of going out and experiencing life for ourselves. We forget the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of the unknown.

The problem with convenience is that it often comes at a cost. We sacrifice quality for speed. We trade in the unique and the authentic for the mass-produced and the generic. The convenience of fast food might save us time, but it also dulls our palates and dulls our spirits. With Amazon’s ‘just walk out’ stores, we give up the opportunity to interact with human cashiers, and the potential loss of jobs is a real concern. Moreover, convenience can also breed complacency. When we are given everything we want with little effort, we start to take things for granted. We stop appreciating the simple pleasures of life and start to demand more, always wanting more.

In conclusion, my friends, let us not forget that there is beauty in the journey, not just the destination. Let us embrace the challenges and the difficulties, for they are what make life worth living. So, the next time you’re tempted by the siren call of convenience, remember that true satisfaction can only be found in the things we work hard for.

Copyright ChatGPT 2023

  Howard Saunders   Feb 12, 2023   Uncategorized   0 Comment   Read More