What successful brick and mortar retailers get right

Abstract

Over the past decade, many retailers with physical stores have felt as if they were in a fight for their lives. A constant stream of media and industry analysis has poured cold water on the channel, illuminating how stores have been closing at a faster rate than at the peak of the Great Recession, in 2008. Known as the ‘retail apocalypse’, casualties have included behemoths like Best Buy (which at the time of writing is gearing up to close 10-15 stores), Mothercare, and Toys 'R' Us, amongst others. Despite the doomsayers, it has long been my conviction that bricks and mortar retail is simply in a state of correction – a period of change, and flux. Whilst some retailers have struggled to evolve, others have been more adaptive in piloting change.

And, although no silver bullet solution exists, as the physical channel begins to rebound, there are many lessons to be gained from those who have been more skilful. Drawing upon relevant streams of research in the field of retailing, including my own experiments on visual merchandising, I pose three important (and overlapping) questions that retailers should be asking themselves. These are:

(i) How do we deliver value that isn’t easily replicated in the online channel?
(ii) How can the in-store shopping experience be curated to be more fun and memorable? And,
(iii) how do we reward shoppers for making the effort to visit us in-store?

With these questions in mind, I put forward five tactical interventions used by innovative retailers - also spelling the acronym: STORE – as a starting point of inspiration where the answer to one or more of the above questions reveals deficiencies.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Rob Angell: orcid.org/0000-0001-8554-2092

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