Smart retailers bring stores to consumers

Retail is set to change like never before, as COVID-19 fades, but the digital shift will only continue – and even expand. Karen Webster says smart retailers must learn five lessons if they are to survive and thrive in the new era.

“Digital change, as PYMNTS defines it, is doing less in the physical world and more in the digital world for the same activity,” wrote Webster in a recent analysis of how traditional retailers should adapt.

She noted that research by PYMNTS found that more than 124 million Americans have already made a switch to online shopping for retail products, groceries and restaurant food. And more than 75% of consumers told PYMNTS that they plan to continue doing so even after the pandemic is over.

The lessons that Webster believes traditional traders should take seriously include the idea that “Retail now is about logistics and the last mile” and “Retail competition is the market, not competitors in other categories”.

And another important conclusion she sees is: “It is not what the consumer can do for the store – it is what the store can do for the consumer”.

“Consumers have a new appreciation of time and digital tools that make it easier for them to save that time and transfer it to other, more valuable activities,” Webster wrote in his review. “Retail [survivors] recognize this reality and invest in digital tools and technologies that do not force consumers to enter the physical store, but bring the physical store to them ”.

For example, Webster wrote that smart retailers will invest in things like video apps to allow consumers to chat with sellers through Zoom, and also provide tools like augmented reality so that customers can “try on” clothing or makeup virtually.

Successful companies “will allow stylists, designers and experienced store employees to interact with a shopper, show her things she might want to buy, organize a furniture room or an outfit, show her how to apply makeup and make the store less of a destination than a virtual showroom with which she can interact with Zoom, ”wrote Webster.

“Retail survivors will turn the in-store shopping experience on its head,” she said. “Instead of forcing consumers to make the sale at the store, [they] it will allow the sale to be made at home after a series of video encounters – up to and including including bringing these items to the consumer’s home for them to see, or perhaps even try, before buying. “

Companies like Marque Luxury, which sells used handbags from Chanel, Gucci and other sophisticated designers to retailers and end consumers, are doing just that.

Although the company operates mainly online, it is adding brick and mortar showrooms that the retailers it supplies can use for face-to-face or video conferences with consumers.

“This is a unique product type, [and] the biggest variable is the condition, ”Marquee founder and president Quentin Caruana recently told PYMNTS. “Having the ability to touch and feel the product is so important that it is difficult for customers to buy online.”

Webster said traditional traders who adopt these technologies can not only survive, but even thrive in the digital age.

“These options save the consumer’s time,” she wrote, “and time is the currency that consumers now think long before spending it.”