Grocery Business - August 2018

2017 Shop! ROI Standards: Store Redesign 5

Future of Bricks and Mortar

According to Shop! Research, retailers almost unanimously agreed that the instore customer experience is very or extremely important to them. Retailers also see brickand mortar stores as extremely important to their business and foresee its importance continuing, if not growing, for the next five to ten years.

To help ensure continued growth, the industry must innovate around three themes: Experience, Convenience, and Personalization. Store design, fixtures and visuals must support experiential and interactive environments. Investments in digital technology must support market demands for convenience. And customdesigned displays should be leveraged to create a unique, personalized value for shoppers.

In the 2016 Industry Size and Composition Study, Shop! identified five retail trends that are transforming the retail landscape.

Shrinking selling space. Stores are getting smaller, and the number of outlets is shrinking, even as U.S. retail value sales are growing.

Consumers are cutting back on
the number of trips and doing
more bigbox, onestop shopping
trips and shopping online. As such, store
fixtures need to maximize space utilization and do more
with less. Portable, movable and/or adjustable fixtures
will be increasingly important.

Rise of omnichannel retailing.

Stores are now playing the role of showroom and distribution center, rather than buying center.

In many cases, there are sepa rate areas for click and pickup with stores are being redesigned to convey this multiplatform message.

Innovative retailers are creating hybrid stores where the physical and online merge seamlessly, and cater to shoppers with ultimate convenience and ease of access.

Online retailers opening physical stores. A growing number of suc cessful online retailers are open ing physical locations to create a more indepth experience for their customers. Fixtures can help bridge the gap between the online and physical realms by carrying themes and colors from online to instore.

In-store retailing becoming more
interactive and experiential.

Retailers are seeking fixtures and displays that are customized to meet new interactive and experiential retailing strategies.

Designs must aid in the creation of the store itself as a brand, as well as a place for customers to experience brands.

Refreshing/remodeling/ redesigning of stores is happening faster. Successful retailers will have the ability to change rapidly. Stores are refreshing, remodeling, and redesigning themselves much faster than they were able to do even a few years ago. There is a higher demand for fast turnkey solutions, along with an increased pressure on suppliers to remain aware of and anticipate trends.

KEY LEARNING:

Larger industry trends indicate that stores must deliver more experiential environments that seamlessly merge the physical and digital. Consequently, store design needs to keep up with rapidly changing technologies and shopper expectations to be successful.