Will the brick-and-mortar store survive?

Disruptive, that's how you could describe the past few years of physical stores. First, the digital revolution was already challenging those four walls and a roof. Did the classic store still have a future? We were already seeing quite a lot of vacancy in our shopping streets back then. March 2020 provided oil on the fire. First closed. Then open, but you were not allowed to stay longer than 30 minutes and anyone who came shopping with you was persona non grata. The friendly smile behind the cash register was concealed behind a mouth mask. The digital challenger of before suddenly became a friend: 'Window shop quietly online at home and then come pick it up safely in the store.' Now the situation is more or less back to normal. But what about the future of the physical store?

Not surprisingly, retailers have plans to invest more in their digital platforms. This is evident from our own survey of retailers from various sectors. One hundred percent of them indicated that their online shops have become relatively more important in the postcorona era and will be invested in more. In our survey, retailers also indicated that stores would receive a similar or in some cases even less budget in the future. Relatively, then, the importance of the physical store decreases in the plans. Yet none of the retailers agreed with the statement that an online shopper is more valuable than a shopper in a physical store.

Omnichannel. Fygital. Optichannel. We use neologisms to describe our channel strategy. We always start from the shopper and not from ourselves. What does he or she want? The shopper does not choose a channel, but wants to fulfill a need. One day he or she likes to stroll the shopping streets for hours, only to be annoyed a day later by a Web page that loads too slowly. Context is key. Therefore, it is often important to make multiple channels available. Accordingly, research shows that omnichannel shoppers buy 1.7 times more than monochannel shoppers. They also spend more. It is therefore best to align the shopper experience of the different channels. That way, you stay the best friend of those valuable shoppers. A tip for making this more streamlined? Make one team responsible for the overall customer experience and don't make the classic split between online (often at HQ) and offline (often in stores). That way you avoid conflicting objectives and internal wrangling. More importantly, you look at your own organization and offerings through the same customer glasses.

We are seeing a significant shift in what shoppers expect from store personnel. The mandatory, accelerated acceptance of the self-scan or contactless payment has created new insights. Speed at the selfscan is becoming more important than personal contact at the checkout for many shoppers. Even in Europe there are already (tests with) cashless stores. Technology empowers shoppers. Digital signage guides shoppers. Smartphones, tablets and smart apps make customers smarter. The once maligned QR code is alive and kicking again. It's up to retailers to perfect the UX of each landing page. But interaction with store personnel is still needed to help use it. Or when it doesn't work. In addition, employees will need to be well trained in sales techniques and assortment knowledge to support the customer in the journey. Perhaps this will also allow retailers to differentiate themselves by just offering that social role. So Jumbo's chatterboxes or "Walmart greeters" are certainly not entirely doomed.

Retailers used to denounce showrooming and webrooming. It wasn't loyal or it ate away at the margin. But we can only embrace this. Webrooming accelerated because of the pandemic. Customers searched online for their product and beat delivery times by picking up the item in the store. Showrooming, in turn, can be very convenient. Or do you like to stand at the checkout of a hypermarket with a too-large outer box for your shopping cart? Or do you like walking down a shopping street with an expensive piece of jewelry? The growth of webrooming will create extra space in a store, because not all products will have to be displayed. Then again, the store of the future will be fully integrated with a central warehouse. Retailers will either use the freed up space to connect with customers or lower rental costs with fewer large stores.

Conscious energy use and smart lighting will be very present. Being able to charge your car in the parking lot will become an expectation. Being conscious of sustainability will not be the reason to choose a store, but rather not to choose one. Single-use services and solutions will therefore become as multi-use or recyclable as possible. Customers also expect opening hours that fit their schedule. As a result, stores will have to stay open longer. Retailers will implement solutions such as self-service pickup systems to keep this profitable.

Stores will increasingly be able to predict customer behavior through physical and digital loyalty cards. Carrefour told a shopper and trade marketing conference that with the help of "recommendation engines," as much as 58% of your shopping list can be predicted. Inventory management, merchandising plans and promotions will become increasingly data-based.

We are not yet predicting groundbreaking applications of virtual reality, augmented reality or artificial intelligence. VR glasses are already being used, but the personal impact is small due to the limited content available. Smart mirrors and posters are being tested and will certainly come. Augmented reality will also be used in the future, provided it creates value in the journey. But before stores can implement it en masse, the cost of the technology and content production must become affordable and therefore scalable. Selling a use case to the board will still work, but a large-scale rollout will not be for the first few years.