As the door on 2024 closes, the window of opportunities opens for Advantage Solutions in 2025. We recently spoke to several of Advantage’s leaders to share some of the top trends and takeaways from 2024.
Here, we follow up with their thoughts on what lies ahead in 2025. Much of the retail evolution that we saw this year will continue at a more accelerated pace next year, while consumer confidence is expected to rise as inflation continues to abate.
Here’s what some of our leaders had to say about the coming year:
Quiet start to the new year, with high hopes for the second half
Dave Peacock, CEO
As we head into the new year, I think it’s going to be a continued soft consumer environment in the first half and, by the second half, you start seeing what I’ll call a little more of a broad-based recovery.
What we’ve seen recently is that Walmart, Costco and some of the national club and mass-merch channels have been doing really, really well.
Meanwhile, grocery retailers are suffering. I think you will see that rebalance a little bit in 2025, which will be good.
As inflation continues to abate, you should see growing consumer confidence. And I do think when you get away from an election, you generally get better consumer sentiment. Just because elections are what they are — it’s both sides talking negatively about the situation that people are facing.
And so I think from a broad industry standpoint, I’m optimistic, especially as you get into the second half of 2025.
Creating experiences that speak to consumers in unique ways
Andrea Young, chief operating officer, experiential services
We have to fight harder for every sampling dollar than we did pre-COVID, and that’s predominantly based on the fact that retail media networks play a more prominent role at every retailer in the U.S. that we service for demo and sampling, and so we have to fight for our fair share in a different way.
There’s a lot more consumer fragmentation in the U.S. than ever before — economics, age, ethnicity, race, etc.
We think being really relevant and authentic when creating experiences is going to be an important piece of supporting these unique consumers. And so we’ve taken an approach where we have been shaping ages-and-stages-based programs. Think about baby registry with Amazon, our beauty registry with Walmart, pet parent registries. These are all models that speak to specific consumers in unique ways.
We’ll also see the continued impact of value shoppers, who really have to stretch their dollar and look for lower-price solutions. Whether it’s private brand or national brand, when people are having to trade away from a brand they love, they’re going to want to try the product that they’re switching to and be convinced for themselves. And that’s good for our business.
Focus on retail media and personalization
Michael Taylor, chief operating officer, retailer services
Retail media is a big opportunity for us, and we’re launching it in a big way in 2025. In 2024 we announced our partnership with Swiftly. We took a lot of shopper marketing businesses within our organization and combined them to create an end-to-end solution — or you can buy it in modules for retailers.
We’ve been successful in already signing up one wholesaler with Swiftly. We’re in the process right now of working on another major retailer.
It’s all about the consumer. Meet them where they’re at. Every consumer thinks they’re unique and different, and they want something for me, not for everybody, but for me. Personalization is important, and we’re starting to do some of that work in Daymon, which we’ve never done before, that we call “distinctive product development.”
They’re actually developing products uniquely for one retailer to help further differentiate them in the marketplace. It’s all about personalization for the consumer, which involves creating unique and innovative products.
You obviously have to have volume to be able to do that, but when you think about what we’re doing with retail media, what does retail media do? It meets the consumer where they’re at and it personalizes it to you and not to the masses.
Gone are the days of the flyer that everybody reads and they pick what they want. Now I want to be able to offer you a personalized offer to help drive volume and meet you where you’re at.
Bolder innovation and growing online grocery sales
Andy Keenan, executive vice president & GM, branded retail services
In 2025, we’ll see continued growth in online grocery pickup and delivery. Overall as a percentage of total grocery sales, it’s still small, but it will continue to grow and represent more of the consumer’s dollar.
It’s also a labor story. The hourly labor that was in the stores is gone and it’s not coming back. One, we’ve seen the wider-spread adoption of self-checkout, which requires
less hands and feet along the front end. And two, we’ve seen a pivot of labor away from doing some of the basic blocking and tackling stores used to do — filling out-of-stocks, correcting phantom inventory, getting new items to the shelf, packing out product from a back room, unloading trucks. The labor that’s in the store is more focused on fulfilling online orders for both delivery and pickup.
We’re also seeing a growing number of consumers embracing efficiency, as demand for prepared foods continues to grow as families battle with less and less time to prepare meals. I think we’ll continue to see that as Americans grapple with finding time and making healthy choices, which are two ideas that are at odds with one another.
I think we will see bolder innovation, new flavor offerings and more cross promotion as retailers and brands work together to create meal solutions. Americans are looking for ways to celebrate at home, and that often now includes preparing foods. And instead of leaving the recipes up to the consumer, the retailers and manufacturers are coming together to create experiences and recipes so they can buy across categories and across the store.
Digital growth will boost private brands
Jim Griffin, president of Daymon, which powers private brand development for Advantage Solutions
Looking ahead, the digital space will get more aggressive with private brands. I expect digital to focus more effort on making private brands the leaders in search as consumer demand for private brands continues to grow.
I expect to see consolidation in the industry. If you’re trying to grow faster alongside the biggest players in retail, you’ve got to be looking to better establish private brands.
I think we’ll also see private brands play more of a role in other channels, such as in convenience stores, home and garden retailers and in e-commerce. That includes non-consumables, like private brand sporting goods, apparel and furniture. If, for example, you’re operating a c-store across the street from a major grocer, how can you be more competitive? You can do it, to a large degree, with a strong private brand program.
Unique experiences can make the difference at retail
Christi Geary, executive vice president of Advantage Unified Commerce, which provides omnichannel solutions across e-commerce, lifestyle and retail platforms
I think AI itself is just going to continue to amplify in 2025. It will have an impact on social and all of the other components. So this will be the year I think we start to see some dividing lines in terms of what can be counted on and produced in the AI space versus what cannot.
We expect to see more of something else we saw in 2024, which is this idea of experiences becoming more important.
But because of the value-conscious trend in 2024, it didn’t really come to life. Think experiences and unexpected partnerships leaning into AR/VR; brands that seemingly don’t belong together but are coming together to do something amazing; live sports and sports marketing combined with CPG experiences. These types of campaigns are going to start to create the difference for people and where they want to engage.
While still conscious of prices, I think people are going to start to make decisions based on the experiences that allow them to have a little relief and fun in the process.
And one overriding trend that continues is that e-commerce growth has not slowed down. It continues to be a big trend. I think it will continue to be even more, and it’s kind of the yin and yang of retail experiences: People will engage with experiences, so physical retail is not going to die. But your e-commerce growth for convenience and comfort is still going to continue to expand.
