Easter eggs appearing won’t be a joke this year. With an early Easter, retail will fast forward from Christmas to Boxing Day sales, back-to-school, Valentine’s and into Easter. Retail will speed into the year. So what else can we expect in 2024? Retail media continues its onslaught The retail media supertanker has well and truly docked on Australian shores. The industry has exceeded even the lofty predictions from a revenue perspective. According to investment bank Morgan Stanley, retail media is on track to siphon more than $1 billion from traditional media owners. With Woolworth, Coles and Chemist Warehouse kicking goals, it is interesting to see the likes of David Jones launching and the early success of the Uber retail media proposition. However, even more intriguing are those that haven’t entered the fray… yet. Super Retail Group made headlines recently discussing its focus on personalisation with no immediate plans to step into retail media. It’s a business ripe for retail media with culturally relevant retailers across diverse categories. There wouldn’t be cannibalisation of endemic brands looking to advertise across Rebel, BCF and Supercheap, for example. And in such culturally relevant categories, the audiences would be rich for non-endemic brands. The other two retailers I’m keeping an eye on for a move into retail media are JB Hi-Fi and Bunnings. Whether that happens in 2024 or more likely 2025 we’ll wait and see. Both have incredible first-party data and, importantly for me, are culturally relevant. In a way, bothbrands transcend culture as few retailers can. In the context of retail media that makes their audiences incredibly valuable, particularly given the opportunity to unlock the non-endemic brands as well as the endemic supplier brands within their ecosystem. While Woolworths and the like have a first-mover advantage and are establishing ways of working with vested interests from brands and media agencies, companies like Super Retail Group, JB Hi-Fi and Bunnings will not be disadvantaged by arriving a little later to the party. Investing the time to get it right and launching the right model with learnings from other entrants will go a long way to success. Loyalty in the spotlight As the year closes out an interesting story has started to develop in the UK that has relevance here. The competition watchdog has started to investigate the rise of loyalty card price discounts. The concern is that those not wanting to exchange their data in return for better prices are being unfairly penalised. Tesco and Sainsbury’s both have thousands of products that are cheaper for holders of loyalty cards. The watchdog is also looking at whether the loyalty schemes are anti-competitive as they discourage switching between retailers (the very definition of loyalty). While I’m not sure these claims have merit, the impact may well be seen in Australia. It’s going to be a fine line for the big retailers to tread. I have some sympathy with the competition watchdog around accessibility. As loyalty schemes move with technology to app-based, it disadvantages older shoppers. Retailers will need to watch this. Likewise, age gates on being able to sign up disadvantage younger shoppers. As we speed into 2024 there are plenty of lessons to learn that could improve the retail outlook in 2024.