How the Web is Depersonalizing our Shopping Experience
Let’s face it, with the exception of stores like Nordstroms, service in most retail stores has disappeared. Even in most big box hardware stores you have to practically chase someone down in their orange overhauls to find out where the #2 robertson screwdrivers are. If you do manage to find someone there is likely a lineup of anxious customers waiting with their queries. Sound familiar?
Bricks and Mortar overheads have increased in recent years to due a multitude of factors. They include inflation, the huge rise in real estate prices, minimum wage hikes, tax increases, inventory and warehousing costs just to name a few.
To add fuel to the fire, retailers have been also faced with a barrage of online e-commerce stores. So how do bricks & mortar stores compete? There’s only one answer for most stores-cut expenses! Most retailers are locked into long-term leases so their biggest expense that is rent usually can’t be touched at least in the short term. So what’s the first expense they cut? You got it- Staff.
All you need to get started online is a website, home office and storage area. This is often how many start-ups begin. Just look at Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who started out by selling books online out of his garage. Amazon will soon become a trillion dollar company!
But is there another way for bricks & mortar stores to survive the onslaught of these low cost specialists? It is no longer good enough to just hang up a sign, throw some stuff in a store and expect to be successful. Maybe back in the 50’s when there was a Bob’s hardware, furniture or clothing store. Today retailers need to focus on that one component that keeps customers coming back to purchase time and time again.
Yes, you got it-customer service! This is what will keep them coming back to your store time and time again.
But will we miss the tactility of being able to go into a shop to feel, smell and touch the various products we wish to buy? My guess is a resounding yes! After getting fed up with email only communications, voice activated assistance and a warehouse two thousand miles away, I feel consumers will long for their local shopping experience. But how many will survive the e-com invasion? It’s happening as we speak. It’s starting with Department Stores and it will eventually trickle down to the smallest shopkeeper if we don’t adapt.
So, will you miss the service you get from your local shopkeeper? I think we all will and there’s only one way to prevent this from happening. We need to support our local stores by buying products we can access at home. Save online purchases for your hard to find items. All Countries were built on the backbone of small business and I don’t believe it’s about to change anytime soon.
Written by David Adelman, Founder and Owner of The Adelman Group