Joy Henry, Executive Vice President, Americas
Momentum is building for retailers in 2025, with trends pointing toward renewed growth. In spite of the prevailing economic uncertainty, retail shopping is thriving, with many major retailers planning expansions. Major retailers are finding ways to combine new technologies, like AI, with traditional in-person strategies in order to increase their reach and improve customer experience.
Change and innovation bring new opportunities, but also new challenges. Here are some of the top hiring trends in the retail and ecommerce industries in 2025.
New technologies transform the future of retail and ecommerce
Faced with economic pressures and a changing customer landscape, the retail industry is evolving. Once an activity reserved to brick-and-mortar stores, shopping is increasingly being conducted through other channels, such as websites and apps. Even customers who prefer shopping in-person may rely on these alternative channels to look up reviews, check for promotions or schedule deliveries.
Omnichannel marketing, which focuses on connecting these various channels to deliver an engaging and effective customer experience, has emerged as a major focus area. Artificial intelligence and automation also generate increasing interest, with AI tools allowing retailers to personalize customers’ online shopping experience, track product performance, and analyze complex datasets.
To adapt to this changing landscape, retailers are looking to fill specialized job roles, such as sales executives, application engineers and senior programmers, in online sales, omnichannel marketing, automation, and AI. However, competition in these fields is fierce, and top talents are hotly contested. To onboard skilled employees quickly and prevent them from dropping out of the hiring process, retailers must avoid hiring delays and provide an outstanding applicant experience.
Organizations benefit greatly from a background screening provider by ensuring they hire trustworthy and qualified candidates. To make a strong and lasting impression, consider these key features when choosing a screening provider.
- User-friendly candidate experience: The background screening and onboarding process should be fast, convenient, and user-friendly. Our background check solution, Profile Advantage, can be accessed anytime and from anywhere, while providing applicants with an engaging experience.
- Extensive partner ecosystem: Look for a screening provider who can integrate their background check and onboarding workflows to your ATS or HRIS platform. First Advantage offers an extensive partner ecosystem of hundreds of platforms, including retail-specific providers like Paradox.
- I-9 compliance: Manually completing I-9 forms is a time-consuming process that can significantly delay hires. Accelerate your onboarding by using digital online I-9/E-Verify solutions, creating a seamless process for both the employee and employer. Our cloud-based solutions streamline the compliance workflow, reducing processing time from days to minutes.
Brick-and-mortar stores are making a comeback
Even though online shopping is thriving, brick-and-mortar stores display a surprising resilience. According to Visa’s holiday consumer spending report, 77% of holiday payments were made in store instead of online in 2024, proving that consumers continue to value traditional shopping experiences. Overall, 78% of retailers believe that in-store experiences are critical to their future success, making this a retail focus area in 2025.
Since retail has many in-person interactions with clients, safety remains a major concern for retailers looking to expand their physical footprint. Here are some of the solutions retailers should consider adding to their employee screening program in order to protect their assets, their customers, and their reputation:
- Pre-employment criminal record checks: This screening staple notifies employers of relevant criminal records and sex offences. For best results, consider implementing a monitoring program to conduct rechecks at scheduled intervals.
- Digital Identity: Fraudsters are becoming increasingly more sophisticated, making traditional identity methods insufficient. That’s why it’s essential that organizations protect themselves against sophisticated identity fraud, such as deepfakes, document manipulation, and biometrics fraud, by using stronger identity assurance levels and methods throughout their hiring life cycle.
- Drug and alcohol screening: Deter drug use in the workplace and help protect your staff and your clients by conducting reliable tests for alcohol and commonly-used drugs. New oral fluid testing methods provide instant results, letting you prioritize safety without sacrificing time-to-hire.
- Driver screening: Provide your customers with a smooth delivery experience and manage compliance with industry regulations by checking your drivers’ and contractors’ driving license and traffic-related records.
Diversifying the workforce
To quickly meet staffing quotas, retailers may expand their hiring pool to include groups that have traditionally faced barriers to employment, such as veterans, persons with prior criminal history, state benefits recipients, and residents of designated communities.
In addition to filling skill shortages and helping disenfranchised groups reintegrate the workforce, diversifying the candidate pool has financial benefits. Under US federal law, employers who hire individuals from targeted groups may qualify for the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), which can provide significant tax savings for qualifying employers.
While some retailers manage WOTC eligibility in-house, there can be drawbacks to this approach, since the manual process involved can be complex and delay hiring. The risk of error also means that some valuable credits may be missed.
This is where third-party screening providers can shine by providing an integrated solution to track WOTC eligibility. Our exclusive solution, Profile Advantage, provides candidates with an online questionnaire as part of the screening process, resulting in a 24% average eligibility increase for our clients as per our internal data.
The rise of new technologies and the vitality of in-person shopping continue to drive expansion in the retail sector. However, scaling up physical operations requires accelerating hiring and onboarding activities, given that retail turnover is high and the pressing need for workers.
To safely expand without delaying your hires, partner with an experienced background screening provider who can provide you with guidance and solutions tailored to the retail industry.
With over 80,000 customers and 190 million screens completed annually, First Advantage is one of the world’s leading background check providers. To set up a screening, onboarding, or monitoring program for your retail company, contact us.
