When Gray Puksand conducted research in 2019 on the future of retailing, little did we know that its prediction—one of an integrated future where work, rest, play and shop come together—would arrive sooner than expected.
This “integrated future” crashed in to our here-and-now with the onset of Covid-19 and confined us to work, rest and play from home.
In contrast, our public spaces, workplaces and shopping precincts continue to lie empty, devoid of human interaction and the messy drum of daily life.
As the world adapts to a new way of being, certain retailers are weathering this uncertain storm by achieving record sales figures, with brand loyalty at an all-time high.
Gray Puksand’s 2019 paper outlined three themes necessary to “future proof” the retail sector: convenience (delivery that is quick, fast and easy), connection (digital and physical touchpoints) and community (sharing the same place and common good, or interest).
The simple answer is, while no retailer would have predicted a pandemic, the retail industry is well-versed in disruption.
The successful retailers are those that have responded well throughout the years to digital disruption, and understood the consumer’s future needs for convenience, connection and community long before the pandemic hit.
Gone are the days when convenience meant a local 7-Eleven store. During Covid-19 and beyond, businesses looking to thrive will need to make consumers’ lives easier.
Look no further than Amazon—with a vision of becoming “earth’s most customer-centric company” which saw sales increase by 26 per cent over 2019 as home-bound customers turned to the web to order essential supplies.
Currently selling food, clothing, media, music, and household goods, in the future Amazon will turn its eye to banking, insurance, healthcare, education and transportation, becoming a “one-stop-shop” to make consumers’ lives easier.
This integration of convenience can also be seen in Singapore’s 12-storey Funan Mall, whose offering of living, co-working, shopping, wellness and leisure spaces—including a cycling track and rooftop football pitch—has created a Covid bubble, essentially a “one-stop-shop” for living and shopping.
Maria Correia, Gray Puksand director for design, said brands can no longer get away with being inconvenient.
“The perception used to be that a convenient product was a cheap product,” Correia said.
“That’s no longer the case—what we will see in the future is that all products need to be easy to browse and access, purchase and deliver, as consumers look for brands that integrate into their lives.”
The success of Omnichannel—a multichannel approach to sales that provides customers with a seamless shopping experience—has allowed retailers to connect to consumers across multiple touchpoints, including online, telephone or in a bricks-and-mortar store.
Walmart’s network of 4,600 stores has been its not so-secret weapon against Amazon, enabling the retailer to deliver goods more quickly to online customers than the internet giant.
Walmart’s future innovation will be the “supercentre” which will get groceries to your door, replace the doctor’s office and rent out computing power to passing drones and autonomous cars.
In Australia, Bunnings has just been voted the nation’s most trusted brand, and has improved connection during the pandemic by developing new touchpoints in response to consumer need, including a park and collect service accessed through an online portal; an app that helps you find product in-store without a sales assistant; the broadcast of a home improvement television show and home delivery of exercise equipment.
As home becomes a haven, separating people from their places of worship, work and play, businesses that bring people together are becoming our new unsung heroes.
Take Newtown restaurant Hearth & Soul, which made a comeback to support struggling Sydneysiders.
Owner Rachel Jelley closed the venue in November, but has thrown open the doors for a series of free meal services, catering to workers who have lost jobs due to the pandemic.
With the help of volunteers, she’s serving up a rotating menu of produce-focused dishes from 12 to 2pm every Friday, inviting diners to register via the website.
Encouragingly for local businesses, consumers’ preference for local brands is increasing: foot traffic has rebounded in local regional centres, as workers remain at home in the suburbs.
“The essence of humanity lies in human interaction,” Correia says.
“We now recognise the value of those anecdotal conversations when buying our morning coffee, and smaller local businesses are fighting back thanks to their place in the community.”
With the onus on retailers to innovate in the Covid era and beyond, designers, developers, architects and property professionals must collectively come together to innovate too.
“We must not lose sight of our emotional and physical connection to bricks and mortar retailing and the lifeline it brings to local communities,” Correia said.
“Shopping can be a means of escape, a way to socialise, or something we do for fun—our design needs to bring people back to these retail spaces.
“As we move from the industrial age to the digital age, we need to consider how we design flexible and adaptable retail spaces that are convenient and safe for consumers.”
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