, access, product choice, convenience and connection, once restricted, expensive or fraught with friction are, today, largely anything but. In many instances, it’s everything—now.. During this past decade the widespread adoption of smart devices redefined the customer shopping journey and old notions of what makes for the best retail location.
Retailers may talk about the e-commerce channel or the brick-and-mortar channel, but our customers know better. It’s all just commerce and they—the every more powerful customer—has become the only channel that matters. The key now is to embrace the blur and execute a remarkable,Earlier in the decade quite a few alleged experts predicted that physical retail was dying, leaning into some version of “software eats retail.
While stores closings have grown dramatically , the facts are clear: the vast majority of retail sales will be consummated in a physical store for the foreseeable future; many retailers continue to open large numbers of brick-and-mortar locations; and physical stores are often critical to drive online brand performance. And in a rather interesting bit of irony, many of the digitally-native brands that once eschewed those pesky things called stores are now opening them as fast as they can..
First, they seriously underestimated the impact of digital disruption. Second, they mostly watched as these forces began to reshape consumer behavior and competitive dynamics. Most critically , they worked on the wrong problems. Instead of focusing on being more remarkable and customer relevant, they cut costs and closed stores. They vainly hoped that a slightly better version of mediocre could be a winning strategy. But good enough no longer is. And bailing doesn’t fix the hole..
While new forces are certain to emerge in the years ahead, plenty of lessons can be learned by reflecting on what retail brands failed to pay adequate attention to, accept as the pressing new reality and, most critically, act upon in the recent past. As cliche as it is, the only real constant is change. And, as retired Army General Eric Shinseki reminds us, “if you dislike change, you're going to dislike irrelevance even more.