There are few things in history that have changed the face of commerce as much as the birth of the Internet. The promise of cheaper prices and greater convenience has moved a significant portion of consumers’ purchases online. The shiny new trend gets all the buzz. Yet, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 94 percent of retail sales were conducted in brick-and-mortar stores.

Yet, most of the Black Friday advertising for major retailers were focused on driving people online instead of their brick & mortar stores. As you stroll through any mall today each and every store seems to have the same play book they follow and other than Apple stores not much innovation seems to be developing. So where should they look for inspiration? One place we can learn from is those dominant online players such as Amazon.com.

The Future of Retail is Not eCommerce Nor The Status Quo

I have spent most of the past two decades, helping all size businesses from retailers like Overstock.com, Dell and Orvis and B2B businesses like GE, Salesforce and Marketo improve their efforts to sell online. Much of what I have been working on in the last couple of years was how companies could compete and stay ahead of Amazon. In fact, my blog post on the 4 pillars of Amazon’s success is shared by Amazon with it’s perspective employees.

Let’s look at the framework of the 4 pillars and then how you can apply the 4 pillars to your business.

1. How to be Customer Centric - Amazon understands that consumers are no longer shopping behind their desktops and instead are always on the go with a powerful computer in their pockets. Mobile traffic is as high as 50% of the traffic on many retailers web sites. As the U.S. Census pointed out, people like to shop in stores. We like the immediacy, the ability to touch, feel, and see the product in our hands before we commit. Amazon is not trying to force customers to fit the way they want to sell them. Amazon would rather fit themselves into how customers buy today and will change their buying behavior in the future. Ask yourself; will you be in the business of helping your customers buy or in the business of trying to sell them hard? Which one of those do you think will keep you around for the long term?

If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we'll turn out all right.”- Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

2. How to be Innovative – The same way Apple re-imagined what retail environment should look and feel like and now sells more per square foot than any other retailer, while also turning their inventory over a whopping 70+ times a year, you should expect Amazon not to have a traditional physical retail presence. There will be a tight integration with online and offline inventory. They will stock items that they know they will turn over frequently and warehouse other items customers can pick up from store several times a day. You can expect a lot of digital displays and use of technology to enhance the buying experience. Last year, Amazon performed over 1900 experiments and spent over 10 billion dollars in R&D in trying to come up with better ways to serve their customers. In today’s environment, and our need to keep up with our customers, we must find ways to experiment as well.

3. How to deliver a superb Customer Experience – They will do everything possible to have people talking about what an amazing experience it was to shop or return items through their store. Every tiny detail in the store will be designed to have customers engaged and excited to be there. As frugal as Amazon is known to be inside the company, there will be no signs that they are trying to save money at the customer’s expense. What are the little details of your store telling your customers what you think of them? In the last couple of years I have been involved with several companies such as Nomi, ShelfBucks and EyeQ that are trying to bring the best of online thinking to the brick & mortar retailer. There is much more technology to be developed here to enhance the brick & mortar customer experience.

4. How to Continuously Improve & Optimize – Amazon’s biggest advantage is its use of data. As well known as WalMart is for their massive data centers and number crunching, Amazon has taken it to the next level optimizing everything down to the individual to personalize each experience. They use their data everywhere from finance and operations, to warehousing and inventory, and to marketing and identifying opportunities. In fact, I am sure, just like IdealSpot helps customers identify the right location for their brick & mortar store locations using over 5000 data points related to demographics, psychographics and real time trends, Amazon also is using tons of data to make that decision for their ideal spots. What data are you using to making your decisions?

I encourage to look to ecommerce for inspiration and direction. Retail is here to stay and I hope you are too.