Every day brings fresh headlines with regards to the challenges facing the high street. Where lies the opportunity in physical stores?
I don’t think that physical stores are going to disappear. The high street is definitely not dead, nor is it dying. There has been a lot of noise lately, but actually I would say that we are going through a ‘realignment’. The challenges are partly down to a change in the retail landscape and declining market share. Businesses have also been slower to react to changes in customer requirements, similar to when e-commerce really started kicking in, and a number of players were arguably too slow to react. Not having the right overall customer value proposition or product are also a couple of factors. This said, traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ environments need to change:
- They need to be more experiential to challenge mobile apps/websites – why would a consumer leave the comfort of their home and make time and effort to go into a store? For this to happen there needs to be something else that is part of the experience.
- Leverage digital technology – consumers do not have the time to shop in store to find an item and then queue up to pay for it!