We spoke with Ulf Johansson, Professor of Marketing at LUSEM, about key retail trends and what lies ahead in the near future.
“One thing is definitively that retail in city centres is struggling. The competition is too hard from shopping centres, e-commerce and external retail places” says Ulf.
He explains that the number of physical retail stores continue to decrease. Commerce goes to the internet, and he also points out that large parts of e-commerce actors struggle as the Chinese actors Shein and Temu, gain consumers in Sweden and other European countries, and are allowed to continue to sell despite breaking the law.
He adds that he would like to say that sustainability is trending, but it is not. It is the opposite of sustainability that is trending. It is focus on price and it is actors like Shein and Temu that stand for low quality and building on inhumane production conditions in factories producing their products that are gaining right now.
Pricing is a big part of what makes us decide what to consume and Ulf Johansson says that we have tended to think that the customer is rational.
“That is not true. There might be elements of rationality in choices but they are much more complex than that. For example, why do we eat food that is not good for us. If we were rational we would not. We have so many other needs to fill that we make strange choices as customers. We consume to belong to a culture, think Harley Davidson, or Apple computers, and we consume in certain ways to form our identity”, Ulf explains.
What is the problem with Coop, and what have they done wrong?
Shifting from the consumer we take a look at one of the retail actors that Ulf has commented on, namely Coop. He assesses that they have the classical problem that he and his colleagues teach all their students in business administration, based on Michael Porter and his theories on competitive advantage.
“They are ‘stuck in the middle’, they are not low price enough to attract consumers that way, and their offer is not differentiated in a very attractive way. As they are also losing market shares, they can not keep up with the low price race that actors like Willy's and ICA started. And they have always been a very slow organization, with bureaucratic tendencies. They are also not delivering on the fact that they are a consumer cooperative, which should be close to consumers with consumer representatives all over the place. They do not have that either,” says Ulf.
How do your roles at the Centre for Retail and Logistics at Lund University (REAL) and at the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council help your research here at LUSEM?
Ulf explains that being part of REAL and of the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council gives him connections in the retail industry, connections with lots of researchers in Sweden and abroad.
“It also give me resources to conduct research in what we – the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council – deem interesting research. This year we focused on how competitive advantage is created among Swedish retail firms. Working for the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council has so far been very interesting and it has also generated research ideas that will result in applications for research funds during 2026,” he says.
A final question: What do you think is going to be the Christmas gift of 2025?
“I hope – I am not very good at guessing – that it is not a product as that will be a symbol of what we need to stop doing, buying more products. I hope it is a service of some kind, or maybe that we give some money to people that need it,” Ulf Johansson says in conclusion.