The company's top executives reveal a series of major changes across all aspects of the department store's pricing, promotion, presentation, and products. "I believe the department store is the No. 1 opportunity in American retail," said CEO Ron Johnson.
The idea that an adversarial relationship is inevitable between shoppers and retailers around smartphone usage, and that retailers should be on the defensive is misguided. Retailers must learn to work with these new developments in ways that keep them on the customer's side.
How can retailers avoid becoming nothing more than real-life catalogs fueling the sales of their online rivals? It comes down to understanding the three areas where presence still matters, and trying to sit at the intersection of all three.
People spend more time shopping than they used to. With all the options available, picking what you want takes more effort. But why do people enjoy it less? And if they do enjoy it less, why do they keep doing it?
Mall operators are monitoring shoppers’ behavior with devices that track mobile-phone signals, while retailers are finding new uses for old tools, such as in-store security cameras. The goal: to divine which variables affect a purchase, then act with Web-like nimbleness to meet those needs.
Competition from e-tailers is amplifying the importance of exclusives and store-branded merchandise that prevent consumers from being able to directly compare items in brick-and-mortar stores, which also take online competitors into account when pricing their items.
Retail theory has enjoyed more than a century of scientific- and evidence-based testing that allows retailers to maximize sales. On the Web we’ve only had a decade and a half, so we could do worse than to embrace what retail has learned, particularly in understanding when to talk and when to listen.
Mobile commerce is arming consumers with a personal shopping assistant and offering new forms of customer rewards, while also providing retailers and manufacturers with valuable digital advertising. As a result, mobile commerce is taking a growing share of online transactions, but also enhancing brick-and-mortar retail.
Research continues to confirm that moms are the driving force in family purchasing. What’s more, there’s evidence that children end up loyal to their mother’s favorite brands, too. So it's little wonder that finding "real people" brand ambassadors is now job No. 1 for many companies.
One way brick-and-mortar retailers can fight back against online competition is by using one of the technologies that threatens to undermine their sales: the tablet computer. Big names are already experimenting.