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“Retailers will need to bring the personalisation, convenience and flexibility of ecommerce into the physical store, to create the experiences customers are looking for.”
Interview with Marlon Bowser, chief executive of HTK
Words by Jade McFarland
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WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHANGES IN RETAIL YOU HAVE NOTICED IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS?
ne key change we’ve seen has been an increased focus on customer experience as a differentiator, rather than price or product features. With lots of price-focused promotions
and discount-driven rewards schemes, retailers have encouraged customers to be “promiscuous” shoppers, hunting around for the best price. Customer experience as a competitive advantage has risen up as the answer to this. It’s a lot more sustainable, but also a lot harder to execute as customers’ expectations are high - and growing. As part of that, we’ve also seen an increased emphasis
on bringing tech into the shopping experience, to join up in-store and online. Analysts keep proclaiming the “death of the high street”, and this simply isn’t true. Ecommerce is growing, but it’s still only a small portion of all sales. Still, bricks-and-mortar shops are going to have to evolve in order to thrive in the future. They’ll need to bring the personalisation, convenience and flexibility of ecommerce into the physical store, to create the experiences customers are looking for.
Centre:mk’s AW17 Live event
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