Conclusions and recommendations 4 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The digitalisation of the retail sector has advanced rapidly since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. As observed in this report, the sudden growth of online shopping catalysed the adoption of many pre-existing technologies, and drove firms to explore new ways of gathering, analysing and using data to grow sales. Although the ›new normal‹ is not yet es­tablished, whatever course the pandemic takes over coming months and years, there is likely to be no return to the retail sector as it was prior to 2020. The technologies adopted, while diverse, point to the burgeoning integration between online and offline commerce which will likely dominate the sector into the future. The technologies discussed in this report clearly have po­tential benefits for consumers, including cheaper prices and greater convenience and customisation. As noted in section 1.1, labour productivity in the retail sector has historically been lower than most other sectors such as manufacturing, which has historically experienced far greater adoption of automation technologies. Thus, the motivations for retail firms to invest in AI and automation technologies are plain: greater efficiency leading to reduced costs and increased productivity; access to wider markets and increased sales (overall); building extensive datasets and consumer profiles; and achieving far greater control over the work performed by retail workers. For workers too there are potential benefits. For some, technology could mean greater flexibility in the timing and location of work, upskilling and the removal of repetitive and/or physically demanding tasks and, impor­tantly, technology adoption can enable retailers to survive in an intensely competitive environment, thus protecting jobs. Although the realisation of any of these benefits will depend on the extent to which workers have a say in the way in which technology is adopted and put to use. However, this research has identified several challenges related to the adoption of these technologies, including: 1. Intensification of competitive pressures – the shift to e-commerce and omnichannel is leading to an intensi­fication of competitive pressures whereby some firms, particularly small retailers, struggle to compete on price and to benefit from technology adoption due to a lack of financial resources and technical knowhow, risking potential liquidations and store closures. This can poten­tially have the perverse effect of reducing competition in the long run if store closures lead to the consolidation of sales in a smaller number of large firms; 2. Employment restructuring and job change – automation and the shift to online sales is leading to the ›logisticisa­tion‹ of the retail sector. Traditional retail jobs are making way for warehouse and delivery jobs, with the latter often characterised by unpredictable hours and precari­ous contracts. These changes also have implications for particular groups of workers with retail jobs traditionally occupied by women, older workers and labour market entrants making way for logistics jobs generally occupied by male workers; 3. Surveillance, control, transparency/accountability and privacy – e-commerce, cashless payments systems, task allocation, scheduling and predictive marketing systems often involve extensive gathering of data. This raises con­cerns about pernicious forms of worker surveillance and monitoring. Further, the quality of automated decisions made by these systems is increasingly questioned, as they are often opaque and difficult to challenge – leading to a lack of accountability and trust. This raises questions about transparency and worker and customer privacy and data security; 4. Overconsumption, debt and the environment – the extreme convenience afforded by e-commerce and omnichannel retail, combined with predictive marketing and the ready availability of credit streams could lead to overconsumption, which could in turn have negative consequences for the environment and lead to increased risk of indebtedness among some consumers. As can be seen, many of the challenges presented by the technologies covered in this report risk making work worse for retail workers. This presents a challenge for trades unions in the sector. In sectors where workers command high levels of bargaining power and receive substantial investment in skills from management, the technological adoption process is likely to be characterised by high levels of negotiation between management, trades unions, and directly with workers, with a view to ensuring upskilling where possible and redeployments married with reskilling where necessary. In retail, by contrast, low wages and lower rates of unioni­sation mean workers have less power to influence employer decisions, and management tend to avoid significant in­vestments in skills formation. This situation is compounded by the blurring of lines between traditional retail work and 17