The Five Trends That Are Changing Retail
Trends In Retail
Nearby, sustainable and digital, this is how the stores of tomorrow are. To an increasingly demanding consumer, commerce must adapt to a changing reality. The convergence between ecommerce and physical stores; the need for personalization and approach; technological advances, new shopping experiences, and social commitment. They are values that grow in consumption, and little by little, they are changing the retail trade.
Society evolves, commerce too. Stores as we know them will sooner or later disappear and give way to new models based on innovation. According to the Retail Revolution 2018 report carried out by Cotto Consulting, technology, sustainability and closeness to the customer are the essential ingredients of new trends in trade. The stores are more human and close; intelligent, experiential and committed to society. These are the 5 new business models that are here to stay.
1. The Human And Proximate Store
Every time the stores are closer to the consumer, businesses tend to approach and humanize their dealings with the consumer. This trend encompasses both offline and online. In the first approach, a ‘sensory activation’ is produced to a greater extent: seeing, touching and tasting. According to this study, between the next 3 and 5 years, 75% of salespeople will be responsible for the customer’s experience with the business, from the beginning to the end.
This approach will be made in the physical store; proximity is also possible in the online channel. With chatbots (a program that simulates holding a conversation with the user through automatic responses) or the development of the so-called “last mile” (final step of ecommerce in which the package reaches the customer), proximity and humanization have become made possible through the internet. In 2015 only 27% of online stores had a user help chat; in 2016, it increased to 45% and currently, the figure continues to grow. According to Cotto Consulting, social listening has been a significant advance in getting genuine opinions from clients and getting closer to them.
2. The Smart Store
The small business adapts to the new impatient, connected consumer and user of various channels. Smart fitting rooms and shelves or stores without boxes have revolutionized the concept of establishment, have improved the customer experience and the management of the store itself. And it is that this new trend of technological implantation, of automation, will go in two directions, towards the store itself and the consumer. The store benefits from facilities in managing issues such as stock, and the customer gets more help and facilities when buying.
13% of current stores have smart shelves to have information on the stock available in real-time and modify prices. In the same way, personalized promotions can be offered to customers who come to the shelf thanks to data such as their purchase history. The implementation of self-pay counters has also grown, in which the shopping experience is streamlined, and long queues are avoided.
In addition to automation, stores also tend to know all aspects of the consumer. The trade aims to analyze customer information, from their behaviour patterns to purchase decisions. According to this study, 73% of surveyed businesses will increase their investment in data-driven marketing, and 58% will use it to personalize the customer experience.
3. The Warehouse Store
Businesses have chosen to combine their online and offline facets in recent years. A warehouse store is an option to the long delivery times, sometimes unavoidable, in ecommerce. Time is increasingly decisive in online consumption; in 23% of cases, the consumer’s decision to repeat the purchase depends on the period in which the product is received. Many merchants have used the physical store as a collection point for online orders to streamline shipping.
4. The experiential store
95% of an individual’s decisions are motivated by the subconscious. For this reason, the marketing sensory aims to create a shopping space that provokes emotions, stores that involve hearing, taste and touch in decision-making. According to the report, this trend can be summarized in future stores with “more space for experience and less assortment. More experience equals more space, more surprise, more services and fewer products”.
Future commerce will focus on the consumer environment over the product. Thus, in 2020 the shopping experience is expected to exceed the price and the product as the differential value of a brand. Innovation in the environment, augmented reality, and leisure spaces are taking more and more prominence from conventional sales
5. The 3.0 Store
The consumer evaluates, more and more, other aspects of the product he consumes. Stores have gone from relating to the customer to focus on their values. Commerce has had to adapt to a changing society, where the environment and involvement with the nearby community play as important a role as the quality of the product itself.
From this trend, models such as the circular store emerge. Recycling and stock optimization are business models in themselves or the sustainable store where transparency, waste reduction, and ecology lead consumers to purchase the product. Stores have had to adapt to a consumer committed to their environment and other added values beyond the old value for money.
Also Read: What You Need To Know About Chatbots
