The Shop of the Future
Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are having to reinvent the physical store and make the 'store of the future'
According to Planet Retail, one of the key capabilities to accomplish this is store positioning – delivering more value, better experiences and reasonable operating profits.
These are 3 key additions we can expect to see by 2025
Love for the Haters
So-called husband pods opened this year at a mall in China, allowing bored dudes to zone out with video games in glass enclosures rather than be dragged around to clothing stores. Weird? Yes. But it’s also a great example of what retailers and malls are doing with the knowledge that the act of physically going shopping can be avoided—and that some people actually hate doing it.
Expect more events and nonshopping distractions to give even the haters a reason to show up in shopping centers—a term that may soon be a misnomer. Today, 70% of mall space is dedicated to retailers, and most of them are selling apparel. The whole model will shift, and down the line 30% of the space will be for shopping, while 70% will be dedicated to food, entertainment, lifestyle, and community activities.
Stores That Recognize You
Retailers have been trying to merge online and in-store operations for years, and the full synchronization of the two experiences will soon be at hand. This means that in the same way a website knows who you are when you’re shopping online, physical stores will identify you in the aisles via facial recognition and retrieve your browsing and purchase history instantly.
Sure, that’s creepy, but the upside is, because the store knows what you like, it might offer pop-up discounts on your favorite products or free samples. You’ll also have the same benefits of online shopping, like one-click purchasing, easy free delivery, and endless information like price comparisons and product history from touch screens or voice command.
The options for what you can buy will be limitless too. You’ll be able to rapidly search everything a store sells and find or customize the exact thing you want/
Stores won’t be restricted by what they happen to have in stock or even by what manufacturers produce. Take running shoes: In the future there will be no restrictions on what size, color, and style of sneaker you can purchase. A scan of your foot will be sent to a 3D printer, and it’ll make customized footwear on the spot.
Try Before You Buy
Retailers will shift to encouraging consumers to interact with products—to explore and play—with the idea this will result in sales in the long run. Last year, Samsung opened a 40,000-square-foot “immersive cultural center” in New York City that doesn’t stock any products for sale. Instead, it boasts a three-story wall of digital screens, a multimedia studio, and a demo kitchen designed for showing off things like smart appliances. It welcomes the public by hosting parties, movie screenings, book signings, and talks by people of interest.
Customers of the future will also be able to see, try on, and even feel clothing in any style, size, colour, and fabric imaginable, thanks to biometric scans and augmented reality. And this won’t necessarily have to take place in a store.With virtual reality, you’ll be able to sit behind the wheel of a Mercedes in your living room—to literally feel what it’s like driving it.You could virtually visit a hotel room you’re thinking of booking or walk around in a restaurant too.”
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