By Albert Ong, Jazva
Remember the feeling of entering a retail store for the first time? As a kid, didn’t you get that rush of excitement and awe as novel experiences flooded your senses?
There’s a certain magic to retail stores that goes beyond sales. I believe this is the key to understanding the role brick-and-mortar stores must play to survive the new era of omnichannel commerce.
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Are Brick-And-Mortar Stores Still Relevant?
In the wake of Sears, Macy’s, and other legacy retailers announcing store closures, it’s easy to say that physical retail is dead. But if that’s true, then why would successful online retailers, including Amazon, Bonobos, Warby Parker and many other brands that started out in pure-play e-Commerce expand their brick-and-mortar presence?
Perhaps these data-driven companies found value in traditional brick-and-mortar retail. After all, digital channels cannot easily replicate the human element and sensory experience physical stores provide. But the store is no longer primarily a place to shop.
If a store becomes too sales-focused, customers will get lost and suffocate under piles of products they would rather sift through online. In fact, most consumers are increasingly becoming omnichannel shoppers, comparing prices on their mobile phones, reading online reviews, all while interacting with the product inside the store.
Physical retail is taking on a different role, and the most successful retailers today are the ones blurring the lines between online and offline channels.
What Customers Want: Fun And Convenient Shopping Experiences
For busy consumers, shopping can feel like a chore. In fact, price and convenience are the two most important factors driving conversions. Shoppers want to find products more efficiently, not spend hours trying to find the right fit or the best price. This is why 70% of upper-income households (20% of the U.S. population) subscribe to Amazon Prime’s two-day shipping guarantee.
According to nationwide research, 78% of Millennials would rather spend money on a desirable experience or event over buying something desirable. What’s more, 72% said they would like to increase their spending on experiences rather than physical things in the next year.
To make shopping both a convenient and a desirable experience, retailers will need to be creative. Instead of asking, how can we get consumers to buy our products?, retailers should be asking, how can we make shopping fun and desirable?
Retailers, both online and offline, have started to respond to this challenge. Amazon opened another brick-and-mortar bookstore in New York to expand their offline presence, while Walmart acquired ShoeBuy to bolster its product assortment online.
Other retailers have incorporated showrooming, better dining options, omnichannel shipping options, virtual reality, augmented reality and other technologies and concepts into their stores.
Bringing Novelty Back Into Brick-And-Mortar Stores
Physical retail can be a space for desirable live experiences that ultimately enrich the customer experience and drive both online and offline sales. In New York City, for instance, Nike recently opened a concept store designed to create a “seamless link between Nike’s digital and physical platforms.”
The store features trial zones, such as a soccer turf and a basketball court with built-in sensors to test for maximum performance. Shoppers can try products in actual sports environments before making a purchase. If you want to test running shoes, just hop on a treadmill and sensors will provide real-time feedback.
Today’s consumers are becoming fluidly omnichannel, moving freely from mobile to digital to physical and virtual experiences. Shopping experiences that succeed are the ones that take the best of online and offline retail, while adapting to customer expectations of price, convenience and personalization.
Albert Ong is the product marketing specialist at Jazva, a cloud-based multi-channel e-Commerce solution that helps merchants fast track their online business. Jazva delivers a suite of enterprise functionalities that high volume B2B and B2C retailers need to compete and succeed in the market.
