Store Associates Positive About Adoption of Retail Technology

Store associates are expected to do more but their level of training has not changed in a decade.

Ten years ago, Red Ant commissioned a piece of research into how store associates felt about their roles, conducted by OnePoll. A decade on, it asked them to put the same questions to store associates in the UK and the US to assess how their sentiment has changed.

The key results brought a number of differences into focus, including:

Store associate knowledge – there has been a 44 percentage point increase in confidence in product knowledge (53% in 2015 compared with 97% in 2025)

Customer expectations – customers now expect even more from store associates: 77% expect them to find stock, compared with 66% in 2015; 65% expect them to provide more product information, compared with 45% in 2015; 63% expect them to make recommendations, compared with 47% in 2015.

Technology and training – there were two constants spanning the ten-year interval: Belief that technology has a positive effect on their role (74% in 2015, compared with 73% in 2025); Lack of training – store associates are still not getting full, comprehensive training (58% got less than half a day’s training in 2015 compared with 63% in 2025

Key takeaways:

There has been a revolution on the shopfloor in being able to access product and customer information, leading to increased store associate confidence and customer demands.

Some areas require more investment, and some store associates still have no access to tech: store associates are expected to do more but their level of training has not changed in a decade -there’s work to be done to ensure they can excel at their jobs.

Red Ant CEO Sarah Friswell said, “We’ve been working with retailers for 15 years now, so we’re in a unique position to be able to look back on our own research to see what has changed for store associates since the adoption of retail technology.”

“It’s very encouraging to see that it has significantly improved their level of confidence, and we’ve also been able to identify gaps in training which we can tackle with our clients. It proves that, though there is still work to do, retailers are on the path to recognising and elevating the role that store associates play in their business.”