Despite Covid-19 triggering an acceleration in the growth of online retail, stores still have a key role to play in a retailer’s arsenal, this is also reflected in the customer’s mindset, with 73% believing in-store takes priority over other channels and 71% of US shoppers spending over $50 in-store per shop compared to only 54% online.
Internationally, retailers are investing in in-store innovations to improve the customer experience in a variety of ways and can be bucketed into having 4 main goals; providing convenience, education, personalization and promoting sustainability.
All tactics orientate around providing a better customer experience, and studies have found in-store experience is more crucial than ever to attracting custom, with 64% of customers valuing the customer experience more important than price.
Retailers are also increasingly turning to technology to offer such services, blending the worlds of digital and physical shopping by increasingly introducing digital technology in-stores to provide extra product information, offer customized recommendations and promotions and create fun and informative AR experiences, all used to encourage a larger basket spend. These tactics are also clearly resonating with customers, with 56% of in-store sales now influenced by digital interactions.
Living more sustainably is another Covid fueled consumer trend, with 32% of customers highly engaged with adopting a more sustainable lifestyle. Retailers are not only increasing the amount of more eco-friendly products stocked, limiting the use of plastics in existing products and using technology to connect the consumer to the products supply chain and origin, but also reimagining the shopping journey to remove single-use plastics altogether via refillable stations and collaborations with innovative eco companies such as Loop.
This news document highlights the best store of the future innovation updates this week from around the globe.