Retailing will become flashier, smaller, and more technologically advanced; are we ready for that?

BY STEVEN KASZAB

Small: if you have gone to their grocery store lately and seen products that seem much smaller than they were 3-4 years ago. Yup, you know what small things are, folks.

Artificial: pretty well all forms of electronics and digital formats. What looks like leather, is synthetic instead. The smile you see from a sales associate as you enter a retailer environment. The assurances you received from the government to balance the books, controlling the budget.

Augmented: to increase the size or value of something by adding something to it.

Retailing is going to change in the next ten years, a decade which will see untold: bankruptcies, amalgamations, and transformations of the retail environment. What is large will become smaller, what is smaller will become more uniquely genuine. What is artificial will become better, what will be imported must become cheaper, or a better design. What is domestically made must somehow become cheaper while maintaining its better quality.

Online purchasing will become more retail centered and managed. Puma products made in Asia will either become cheaper, or better made maintaining their branded pricing.

Online Kiosks will be installed in retailers’ environments for instantaneous purchase no matter sizing, color or style. Retailers will stock only certain products they are assured will sell out. There will be greater use of A.I. within their promotional and sales plan. Instore advertising will move more to digital (A.I.), and away from paper signage.

Customer service will become the most important added sales benefit to customers. The retail experience must and will become both entertaining, longer lasting and far more clingy. Retailers will follow their buying clients home and to work, trying to become actual parts of their branded clients’ lives through electronic-artificial technological methods.

Retailers will introduce more gaming-like promotions, attempting to initiate greater sales. Customers, through their buying histories could receive credits, discounts and gifts intended to push the retailer’s brand and specific product lines.

Retailers will either acquire smaller, but fuller spaces within their mall locations, or become flagship maxi spaces. Box stores will amalgamate retailers of similar product lines attempting to become the: sporting, hardware, clothing, premier clothing, or high-end retail center. More retailers will share their space with governmental agencies to acquire their licenses and permits. Such an experiment has been the post office, Service-Ontario, and the LCBO with retailers like Staples, corner stores etc. Shared space also attracts potential customers to the retailer’s environment.

Cell store options will become more important in the future. While larger stores or warehouses maintain stock, cell stores can locate in a few hundred square feet of space and generate sales in distant locations.

The ‘Greening Movement” has inspired retailers to investigate and incorporate artificial, but good quality products that are reusable, or made of recyclable materials. This purposeful approach allows retailers to charge appropriately for items that will save the planet in time.

Technology within the A.I.; the field will allow retailers to follow their customers more directly, know what and where they purchase, stay and shop. This information will be sold with the customers permission of course.

Retailing will become flashier, smaller, and more uniquely suited to the needs and wants of their clientele; are we ready for that?