Which stores fit into the shopping street of the future?

Fallen favourite
The recent bankruptcy of Bed, Bath & Beyond, once an American crowd pleaser, is indicative of the situation on the high street. With the enormous competition from online retail, retailers are having to prove much more than before that their physical store still has a right to exist.

If retailers want to survive, they will have to adapt to the laws of online (long-tail strategy: focusing on the widest possible assortment) and offline (offering expertise and experience). This means that they will have to make clear choices about how they deploy the sales channel. Only with a concrete positioning and rock-solid proposition is it still possible to retain customers. This can be achieved by making clear choices about what you stand for and which customer segment you serve. Action stands for cheap, Armani for exclusive.

If retailers want to survive, they will have to adapt to the new reality and make choices about the use of different sales channels. Not only the choice of physical, online or both is important, but more importantly what you will offer there and how.

Experience
The buying behavior of the modern consumer is based on the choice between an experience or a day out (physical store) or an endless supply at a low price (online).
Moreover, consumers want the brand to stand for something. For example, this purpose of the brand can be loaded with a focus on sustainability. And above all, the consumer wants to be understood and approached personally. Personal is having knowledge of your customer. This can only be done by collecting data. This data also often reflects that your customer base can be diverse. An elderly person may have the same music taste as an adolescent. Instead, today profiles are created that track customer needs. All based on data.

One way to set up a future-oriented strategy is to organize your data management properly. By getting to know your current and potentially new customer segments well, you can predict which trends will appeal to them and which will not, and base your assortment on that. However, you see that many retailers have an enormous amount of customer data, but struggle to structure this data and translate it into the right approach and experience per channel and how to integrate these channels (phygital commerce & unified commerce).

Cause: Failliet Bed Bath & Beyond laat zien dat ouderwetse winkelketen het moeilijk heeft