Opinion: What does the future of retail hold?

With talk of digital and disruption dominating discussions about the future of retail, it may be worth taking a contrary view to stimulate debate and innovation in your company.

“Your best future need not be binary, but a blend of human and digital”

Be prepared for a future where growth comes from introducing more friction into the shopping experience, curbing a relentless focus on efficiency in favour of increased humanity, becoming more local and letting people get lost.

Your best future need not be binary, but a blend of human and digital, local and borderless, surprising and algorithmic.

The digital revolution has produced an immeasurable amount of content. “We are living through a crisis of attention,” says philosopher Matthew Crawford. “Mental fragmentation has become a defining feature of contemporary life.”

The rise of mobile has exacerbated this trend. When we pick up a newspaper or magazine, or wander into a shop, we give ourselves the opportunity to be inspired by the art of association.

Letting people get lost

Online, however, our behaviour is very different. Douglas McCabe, chief executive at Enders Analysis writes: “The one thing we never do online is browse. It would be impossible if we tried.”

According to Nielsen’s 2015 Books and the Consumer survey, 41% of purchases in bookstores are planned, but the majority are impulse buys. Online, however, two thirds of online bookstore purchases are planned and a third are impulse buys.

“People are looking for ways to revive serendipity”

Codex Group data is even more extreme, estimating that just 3% of book choices on Amazon are stimulated by browsing.

But the debate does not have to be digital versus physical; rather things can be digital and physical. Consumers spend twice as much in-store when they receive assistance from a retail sales associate, according to InMoment.

People are looking for ways to revive serendipity and break out of algorithmically optimised filter bubbles.

“Getting lost opens us up to the unknown,” says Ellen Keith, founder of The Flaneur Society.

“It’s just exciting to stumble upon something, to have those chance encounters that you won’t have if you are always going from A to B.”

Stores are not just about consumption any more – they are platforms for connection, participation and mystery. Emporium retail is experiencing a renaissance in the digital age, embracing a store’s ability to engage and surprise.

The importance of localness in a borderless world

“Consumers are placing more value in local services, locally relevant products and local staff and knowledge”

As the world becomes more global and borderless, we are expecting the importance of localness to grow.

The number of Google searches that used the term ‘near me’ grew by 240% in 2015.

Consumers are placing more value in local services, locally relevant products and local staff and knowledge; look to Nike’s Community Store programme, which has launched in Brooklyn in the US and, among other initiatives, hires at least 80% of its staff from within a five-mile radius.

As retailers consider their possible futures, they are exploring ways that shopping can become more human in the face of digitisation, and ways they can accentuate local over global and reject the drive towards ‘faster and cheaper’ in favour of ‘surprising and delighting’.

Trevor Hardy, The Future Laboratory