What does a ‘new era of retail’ actually mean?
We hosted 25 industry experts at a Fluxx Exchange breakfast to discuss the new era of retail. Here are 4 things that evolved our thinking.
1. Physical spaces and digital experiences need to work together, producing seamless products and services that surprise and delight.
Our high streets are changing, but “it doesn’t matter where your journey starts or ends. 86% of online sales have touched a physical store at some point”, says Lucy Maguire from Vogue Business, “…there’s a feedback loop”.
But how to develop an eco-system of brand awareness? Sales associates become brand ambassadors and customer trust is built through impeccable service, along with relevant and timely product offerings. A good example of the symbiotic relationship between the digital and physical is the John Lewis Personal Shopping experience:
- Stylists visit London Fashion School and theatre training before meeting clients.
- Stylist’s Instagrams are public, clients check out the stylist’s fashion sense, choosing a personal shopper they’re comfortable with.
- Emphasis is on building relationships; the stylists make personal recommendations and customers easily re-book appointments via WhatsApp.
- Simple, existing tech is used to empower the precious relationship between customer and stylist, building a strong, lasting relationship.
2. Smart Investment: Evaluate where the sustained value actually is in the business, and what are the new opportunities for growth?
How do you quantify the value of the store, and make it best serve the customers and brand?
Landsec is landlord to around 70% of the shops in the Victoria area. “A lot of brands don’t know what they want their store to be. The financial implications of making any changes are huge, and retailers don’t know where the value’s at”, remarks Gemma Casey. “For us, it’s about facilitating new businesses, while supporting more traditional legacy brands”.
How the high street is curated is fundamental; we must create a unified vision of complementary businesses to serve a variety of customer needs and desires.
3. The rise of the Subscription model
Typically, there are 3 kinds of subscription products:
- Regularity/Convenience — (all your necessities on demand) Who Gives a Crap
- Discovery — (experience something new and exciting) Little Gin Box
- Ventures — (when we have enough subscribers for X, we will make X) Ffern, the Perfumers.
Whilst there is an increase in consumer awareness of their carbon footprint, subscriptions are also being used to counter over consumption and unnecessary purchases.
Plus, it’s not all bad. After receiving your online order, pack your empty box with clothing or household goods you no longer need, print a prepaid Give Back Box label and the contents will be sent to charity.
4. ‘Customers are the most valuable thing your brand has… but they’re not yours’ CEO, Sheridan Retail Design Agency.
John Lewis placed a testing lab instore, so sales associates were “never more than 10 meters from customers testing new products and new concepts” says Sienne Viet.
“It’s about adopting a company-wide agile mindset… take the smallest effort to understand the biggest unknown”. From there, test, iterate, and you have a recipe for customer-centric success.
While technology allows for new opportunities of streamlined experiences on and offline, it’s a change in mindset that’s required. We all agreed, it’s people that are at the heart of the success of the new era of retail.
Want to know more? Check out our latest publication on A New Era of Retail, How people drive transformation and Stop talking start listening — behaviour change at scale.
Jassi Porteous is Marketing Lead at Innovation consultancy Fluxx. We help big companies to act more like start-ups. If you want to know more about how we could help you, get in touch at jassi@fluxx.uk.com, download our latest book or sign up for our newsletter.
