Retail experts have said Britain’s ailing high street shops should swap traditional customer service with ‘customer experience’ to meet changing consumer needs.
Offering a ‘showroom experience’ alongside a seamless online buying process – largely based around mobile – is one of the key measures planning, advertising and retail experts believe will ensure Britain remains a nation of shopkeepers.
“There is simply a demand-side need for the high street,” said Steve Smith, head of thought leadership research at Starcom MediaVest Group. “And I think there’s now a big opportunity for the high street to meet a new range of needs.”
Currently, e-commerce is the make or break for many brands and has become central to the way British consumers now shop. Research company Verdict last year predicted that online shopping will reach £50 billion by 2018, yet a report by Retail Week states that retailers expect entirely flat growth this year.
The impact of the recession, changing buying behaviours and a failure for some businesses to adapt has also been blamed for the 14% average vacancy rate for retail space across the UK, a figure that rises as high as 33% in some areas.
Bill Grimsey, the former Iceland boss who runs the Vanishing High Street website, said to meet new consumer needs – whilst simultaneously helping maintain and grow local economies – retailers must make the technological investment and reboot their business.
“Customer service is not important,” Grimsey said. “Forget it as a term; it’s old hat, it doesn’t work. Replace it with customer experience. Apple designed a store that is an experience – it doesn’t even have checkouts.
“Showrooming will become a huge part of the retail cycle. We’ll soon have shops with no stock in them. People will go to experience what they’ve seen online. To touch and feel. And they will buy remotely afterwards.”
Like the world-famous Apple stores, John Lewis recently opened up a retail space in which there was no actual stock. The idea was to allow people to experience the brand, speak with its staff and sample its products before making any purchases remotely.
Guy Douglas, a digital high street programme manager for ATCM, added that what people want today is vastly different compared to just a generation ago.
“Our expectations now are completely different,” he said. “We are now looking for a new type of experience from the high street – we’re looking for a deeply immersive brand experience.”
Asked what role out of home advertisers could play in helping revitalise high street retail, Mungo Knott, marketing and insight director, Primesight, said the medium can help stimulate purchase anywhere in the ‘active space’.
“Consumers are driving significant change in the retail industry,” he said. “Convenience shopping, showrooming and mobile transactions are all elements of new paths to purchase for many retailers and brands.
“Outdoor advertising has long been used to deliver influence though its proximity as the last message before the point of purchase. Now, as the pattern of change accelerates, it is becoming increasingly important to reach connected consumers at any point in their journey which delivers the most relevance and context.
“Delivering its impacts in ‘the active space’ outdoor advertising provides that platform to reach consumers in most environments.
“Combining this with the development by retailers and local authorities for more ‘always on’ Wi-Fi and beacon zones, brings together visual identity for brands, instant interaction for customers and the power of mobile e-tailing for retailers.”
Other developments to help revitalise the high street include shop windows made from interactive screens, city-centre showrooms linked to home depositary boxes and stock that is 3D printed in-store to meet exact requirements.
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