Can brick-and-mortar come back?

"According to experts, the best path forward for brick-and-mortar stores is focusing on the customer experience, avoiding discounts as a main strategy, and designing smart loyalty programs that show your company knows its customers (and will help you get to know them even better)." MIT Sloan School of Management

When things shut down last March, retailers were forced to respond quickly and decisively. Saks OFF 5TH doubled down on digital, created a dedicated shopping app and are getting more deliberate in defining the role of in-store in the broader experience the provide. You don't need to be in the store to enjoy a "surprise and delight" moment, but there are benefits that are unique to the store experience, such as immediate access to product, a certain kind of browsing experience, and rapid returns. Being forced to change strategy because of a massive global event is not a typical occurance, but it has been an opportunity for businesses to see how quickly they can change directions, experiment and adjust. I hope that as we emerge into a "new normal" organizations continue to respond to the market with agility and creativity. Great interview by Caroline Fairchild of Saks OFF 5TH CEO Paige Thomas starting at the 4:00 mark.

“For more traditional mass retail formats, there is opportunity to inject these moments of discovery for their customers, and I think that’s what a lot of the shops-in-shops are bringing to their destinations,” Gonzalez said. The reason such formats are gaining new life is because new technologies make such partnerships less risky and offer the potential to generate a gold mine of data, Gonzalez said. Citing mobile and the integration of retail technology due to the pandemic, there’s more opportunity for both parties to track attribution of a sale back to the physical location. Retailers Reimagine Shops-in-Shops for Next-Gen Consumers (thanks for the conversation Richard Collings) https://lnkd.in/e8thfXE

Physical retail will need to drastically rethink key metrics like comp store sales, sales per square foot and dwell time. In apparel, the pandemic bump looks like it will stay. Revenge shopping will help some stores in 2021 but do we really see store traffic resuming to pre-pandemic levels?

Selective online stats again fueling narrative? With a title like, "Can brick-and-mortar retail come back?" I was intrigued to see a recent Forbes article claimed online retail was at 25% in April 2020. According to a chart from Jason Goldberg at Retailgeek, based on the US Census Bureau those numbers are off track and about 25% overstated. Ecom ended up at about 16% for 2020. The idea of #retail never being the same and bricks and mortar and malls being dinosaurs is now a weekly fascination. You want to know what's happening? Retailers are obsessed with online path to purchase: Awareness, Interest, Consideration, and Purchase to try to claw back what they lost last year. Here's the thing, a store that is operated as a revenue hub knows they have to meet those same goals: awareness, interest, consideration, and purchase all in a visit. The bad ones who simply ask, "Can I help you?" cut out the first 3 parts of the path to purchase. Is it a wonder those stores struggle? You might as well just ask, "Can we take your money?" What say you Michael V. Stanton Jeff Davenport Daniel H. and the rest of you? #ecommerce #brickandmortar https://lnkd.in/gr8xa9f

What does brick & mortar retail look like in a COVID-19 world? We speak with the CEO of Saks OFF 5TH, Paige Thomas

A new model of retail partnership which sounds intriguing; a more fluid, risk sharing and flexible response?

Are you ready to shop #roaring20 style? Global Consumers’ Pent-Up Demand Is Giving Retailers New Optimism. Read more about what the experts of the Retail Influencer Network say. Thank you to all of our attendees for a great call! Allie Egan, Andrea Drasites, Cedar Carter, Chip Wade, Dana Telsey, Deirdre Quinn, Fern Mallis, Greg Hanover, Greg Petro, Jennifer Walsh, Joelle Grunberg, Kate Oldham, Kay Unger, Lucy Lieberman, Maxine Clark, Melissa Gonzalez, Miya Knights, Oliver Chen, CFA, Padmaja Bommareddy, Pamela Baxter, Peter Fader, Robert Wallstrom, Stacey Widlitz, Stephen Sadove, Tony Shan, William Susman, William Taubman