The end of summer marks the beginning of back-to-school. Students getting ready to head back to school are gearing up for their new terms, which means big business for retailers. According to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, back-to-school and back-to-college spending is expected to reach $83.6 billion in 2017 (up from $75.8 billion in 2016).
If you’re in traditional retail, you know how tough it is to survive and thrive in the post-Amazon world. Every week, news headlines reinforce how much Amazon is disrupting the industry, such as the fact that 8,600 brick-and-mortar stores are now expected to close by the end of 2017.
Today, brick and mortar retailers have to work harder to compete with the likes of Amazon and other online merchants. Other than better products and competitive pricing, merchants need to focus on enhancing their customer’s journey with a positive buying experience. This is where an omni-channel strategy comes into the picture.
Are offline stores disappearing in the age of eCommerce? The traditional store as we know it seems to be becoming a thing of the past. But one walk around NRF Retail’s Big Show this past January and it was clear that stores are not leaving, just changing, as we enter a new era in customer experience possibilities. Retailers that once focused mainly on the best in-store positioning for sales are now focused on creating a conceptual experience for consumers, whereby some don’t even offer in-store sales. Here are the top three trends that Gilles Brabant, Ingenico ePayments Head of Sales, believes we’ll begin to see more of in retail this year:
The retail shopping experience hasn’t evolved much in the past 10 years. While some retailers have introduced new technologies to enhance the in-store shopping experience, most retail environments remain fundamentally unchanged. Customers walk in, they pick up the goods they want and they wait in line at the checkout counter.
