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The Retail Experience Reimagined | Accenture The Retail Experience Reimagined 1 Retail must reposition its place in a Here, we identify five retail industry reimagination customer’s life now that the pandemic opportunity areas and outline how brands can has changed shopper expectations. adapt their shopping experiences to meet changing Future success will depend on a retailer’s behaviors and expectations. These opportunity ability to adapt business models and areas are relevant to all retail sectors – from grocery create shopping experiences that engage to clothing, electronics and furniture. and delight. 1. Everywhere Commerce Retail has been in a state of evolution since the dawn of the internet: Current events only 2. Let Me Entertain You accelerated this change. 3. The Many “Re”s In Retail What do modern shoppers expect? What will delight them? Now is the time for retail 4. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Purpose Is brands to ambitiously reimagine their relationships with customers, and to set a 5. If You Don’t Know Me By Now high bar. This entails focusing the whole business on the delivery of exceptional experiences, which is what we call the Business of Experience. It entails the rewiring of the customer-facing functions of the organization – marketing, commerce, sales and service. The Business of Experience is an approach that allows organizations to become customer obsessed and reignite growth. 2 Retail was always New age, new wired to adapt expectations Big-box retailers, shopping malls and value- Sudden shifts since 2020 Despite the shifts, shopping still happens focused suburban superstores were once what defined shopping for a majority of The retail industry has long been at the Consumers have spent less on travel people. Then the internet evolved how and forefront of digital disruption and change, and dining out during the pandemic. Yet, where shopping occurred, leaving some and the rise of shopping platforms has shopping has remained buoyant overall.6 legacy brands considering how to evolve, enabled convenience and value while also In the US, for example, people spent over too. causing much disruption. $100 billion more on goods during the last year than they did in the year before As the COVID-19 pandemic gradually eases, Although digital has powered this wave of (improvements to the home, more money people will crave real-world experiences, change, we’ve observed significant increases spent on food for cooking at home, and so but their expectations and behaviors have since 2020. on). adapted, which means the retail landscape will emerge in a very different shape. • Digital commerce has increased However, the disruption to all aspects of life significantly across sectors1 and the multiple crises we’ve been facing Bland brick-and-mortar stores and • Populations have acclimatized to online as a society – health, economic, social, experiences will go away, and we will see grocery shopping2 environmental – have also made people the influence of digital intelligence across all • Curbside pickup became a priority when reflect on what truly matters and their aspects of shopping, not only e-commerce. face-to-face transactions represented a choices in life, including what, where and Digitally enabled convenience, value and health risk3 how they buy.7 flexibility will be table stakes. • Fashion and apparel purchases shifted as work and socialization patterns changed4 Now, new and increasingly digital shopping Meanwhile, shoppers will put a premium on • Communities sought to support small habits (combined with these new needs and tailored, engaging and educational in-person local businesses as they suffered to keep expectations) set the scene for a radically shopping experiences, and their purchases their doors open5 altered post-pandemic shopping landscape. will increasingly reflect their personal values and beliefs. 3 What has made Digital omnipresence retailers resilient? moves center stage Many retailers have seen declining revenue Where and how people shop will be Physical spaces will need to be and closed storefronts, while some have driven by resilience redesigned as experience centers, built prospered and expanded. Organizations for entertainment, education and tailored with robust digital capabilities and flexible The benefits of an omnichannel retail service – all while integrating and benefiting operations have been less impacted than approach have been widely discussed. the local communities they exist in. Shops their less-prepared competitors. Now, the need for digital omnipresence – an will no longer be the final step of the sales approach underpinned by digital’s ubiquity funnel, but an integral part of the discovery Digitally mature retailers were able to in both the real world and online – will move and education experience. increase digital efforts and reap rewards center stage, creating new opportunities. from years of investing in digital capabilities, We should think of stores as brand-building partnerships and expertise. A flexible Digital discovery, commerce and fulfilment experience centers, not merely as places organization allowed them to quickly will become atomized and distributed across where goods and inventory conveniently respond to the new climate and adapt the various places people spend their digital collide with customer transactions. inventory, delivery methods, supply chain time. When people get inspired or remember solutions, community-centric approaches, something they need, brands need to be and the focus and work of their employees. there, available to buy – instantly. Looking ahead, both digital capabilities and Behemoths like Amazon and Alibaba will flexible operations will remain fundamental continue to make shopping more accessible, to success in the next phase of retail. They seamless and price positive, but the will inform new and engaging shopping enormous recent e-commerce uplift has models and experiences, which will be pushed customer expectations even higher. needed by retail organizations to meet From messaging apps to social networks customers’ evolving expectations and and beyond, today shopping needs to be an demands. integrated part of people’s digital lives. 4 Establishing a climate for customer loyalty Core values should be unique to each retail organization, and your competitive advantage comes in what you choose. However, the two can set up all retailers to thrive regardless of their customer base. Transparency: Show Customers What You Are Doing Customers can uncover more information about how your company works than ever before. In a fully transparent company, no chief officer ever worries about a leak to the media. By making your entire operations model transparent and easy to review, you not only show customers you have nothing to hide, but you also identify where you can improve your operations to create the best possible experiences and outcomes. Authenticity: Do What You Say You Will Do Company values and social responsibility campaigns are important, but demonstrating that your company is regularly acting in alignment with those values is critical. Mishaps will occur, but how you respond can turn a media nightmare into a moment to show your commitment. 5 Reimagine Experience Retail - Everywhere Commerce 01 Everywhere What’s going on By early 2020, many people were regularly Commerce shopping on retail websites. Then, lockdown measures and social distancing to stem the spread of COVID-19 rapidly accelerated the Online shopping is now the growth of e-commerce – speeding it up by four to six years in just a couple of months.1 norm, so retail organizations must create new opportunities Dot com shops are not the only way to reach shoppers, however. For while e-commerce for transactions in new has grown, so too has customer engagement physical and digital places. with brands and shopping in new ways that With the right partners – and are convenient for them. by harnessing appropriate In China, for example, social commerce – emotions – any activity can shopping via social platforms – has become big business. WeChat, owned by Tencent, generate a customer. delivered $115 billion in social commerce sales in 2019 alone.2 Meanwhile, Pinduoduo, an app that lets users shop virtually with friends on social media, has grown from a start-up to the country’s second-most- valuable online retailer.3 6 Reimagine Experience Retail - Everywhere Commerce Elsewhere, Shopify has seen a huge What’s next increase in the volume of brands mobilizing e-commerce platforms, demonstrating a Retail brands need to meet their audience powerful demonstration of how the right strong appetite to build direct-to-consumer where they’re already consuming content, experience can turn any person into a new models alongside digital marketplace and where audiences are consuming content fan or customer. strategies.4 is rapidly evolving. Retail organizations can make any place their Boundaries between brand content, user- When musical artist Travis Scott debuted point of purchase. But their ability to do so generated content and e-commerce stores new songs in a virtual concert within the will depend on having the right strategy and are blurring, creating several different hit video game Fortnite in April 2020, a the right partners and leveraging effective paths to purchase. Meanwhile, content and staggering 27 million+ people viewed the emotional content. commerce are merging, enabling shoppers popular rapper’s work – the largest in-game to buy relevant products in nontraditional gathering in Fortnite’s history.5 This is a e-commerce settings,
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