The Future of Retail Is Extreme

Tom Goodwin
February 18, 2017

A version of this appears in Marketing Week, please click here to view it there, or read this longer version below.

A change is sweeping through retail and it’s not what everyone assumes it is. We may think the internet is changing shopping forever, and it certainly is, but another unspoken dynamic is everywhere, it’s the bifurcation of retail.

Every action has a reaction, a nation high from snacking on 6 second videos needs equally to binge watch hours of TV. The perfect consistency of a McDonalds or Bud Light, creates the need that craft beer and pop up food festivals satiates. Shopping is seeing the same split, it moves from shopping as a branded experience and to buying as the ultimate in ease.

Buying is rife.

I’m pretty sure no person in modern times has ever been so bored that they went window shopping at amazon.com, the spartan CMS, the ugly product shots, the functional taxonomy have all been designed to make buying as easy and seamless as possible, but never fun.

Shopping on Amazon when it works best isn’t an experience, it’s a lack of experience. It’s the purest example yet of the act of removing every possible barrier. Every piece of friction. Online retail is for most sites, endless A-B tests to reduce the chance of anything getting into the way.

This is the world of buying, it’s about a surgical operation, designed to be automatic, it’s for people who know what they want and want to get what they need without thinking. Increasingly the world of retail seems to work this way. We’ve product reviews as a star system to give us confidence in our decisions in a clear language and in seconds, we’ve the Amazon Dash Button allowing us to procure items without ever making shopping lists or thinking again. We’ve Hotel Tonight showing us a small range of perfectly decent hotels for that evening that you can book in a swipe.

We’ve limited choice retail, reducing cognitive burden by offering fewer easier choices. From Casper with their one mattress, to Honest with their simple product offering to Direct TV Now with 4 tiered packages with easy names like “gotta have it” to “live a little”. Even Maple, a new food service option in New York offers a handful of curated meals each day and little options to think about.

We’ve repeat subscription retail too. What’s easier than buying ? Not buying. Things arriving magically month on month. If the ultimate in luxury is never having to think, Walmart,Target and Amazon,Dollar Shave Club and more have subscribe and save programs.

The name of the game in buying is making it easy as easy as possible and then more. From using PayPal plug ins, to saving payment details to making checkout easier to clear bold interfaces like Polypore , to leveraging IM or swiping with the array of “tinder for shopping apps” . to swiping your way nonchalantly to purchase via apps like Blynk and Stylet.

Buying will soon envelop us, from ordering Pizza via Voice in the Amazon Echo, to predictive retail that sends you think before you want, frictionless shopping is the way.

And note this isn’t just online retail, after years of assumptions that modern retail was about adding screens and complexity, Amazon Go stunned the world last week with hyper modern store with technology removed. Gone were iBeaconned coupons, or e-ink pricing, Amazon Go was just a stripped out experience where people did nothing. Or we’ve concept stores like “the store” in Japan which just sells the very best one example in the world of about 200 items. The easiest Choice architecture being “I just want the best”

Shopping Get’s Fun

Even the most ardent M&M’s fan doesn’t think the 25,000 ft of M&M’s world in Times Square is there to satiate the cravings of New Yorkers for chocolate at 11:45pm at night. Like all Flagship stores M&M’s world is there to impart an experience. It’s shopping to be remembered, it’s a journey of discovery, it’s a memorable, it’s to take time and savor, it’s the opposite of buying.

Shopping is most often found in physical retail because it’s the easiest to do with sights and smells. Shopping is the world of adding experiences. It’s the interactive perfume lab in selfridges, the selfie opportunities in Harvey Nichols, the Hardware club experiences in Harrods or the extravagant laboratories of Le Labo. Coffee shops seem to have learned this, it’s the unnecessarily long wait, the drama of the brew, the theatre of the leather bound menu in Intelligensia coffee.

There are different takes, the curated journey and raison d’être of a store like Story in New York, with items placed around a modern tale. It’s the smart mirrors and body shape scanners in department stores. It’s the dramatic design of seemingly endless seeing machine in All-Saints, or interesting concepts like Bespoke in Westfield San Fransisco that mixes working startups with places to shop. Buying is the Nike Flagship stores and the running tracks and fitting equipment, it’s the Lululemon pamphlets with why they made it. It’s the Uniqlo stores in Japan where you vote for your favorite new products with white dots. Buying is Farmers markets and the stories of provenance, it’s the lavender oil factory store in Provence, it’s the oddly expensive wine story at the Vineyard, but it’s not just offline. Buying is the tailored suit made from Suit Supply where the consultation is part of the experience.

We’ve sites like NetAPorter thrive with content as commerce, we’ve editorialized catelogues taking over the top end of the market, and even companies like Nike making TechBook, a tactile, 3D, and immersive mobile app where the clothing comes alive. We’re seeing online and offline shopping start to come together, but retail move to each extreme.

Move to one extreme to thrive.

The true successes of modern retailers are those who understand the divergent nature of modern retail, who either serve people quickly and efficiently.

We’ve seen how eCommerce has changed buying habits, but stores have changed little beyond adding iPads at tills. Modern shoppers don’t buy online or offline. They buy in the modern world. One where expectations have changed, where patience is short, where service and delivery is expected and where they either expect things to be incredibly quick or very fun.

So here is your question? Which one are you maximizing for? Is IKEA fun enough to be shopping or quick enough to be buying? Is having 7 pairs of sweaters in Medium but none in large a nice experience to add on? Is it cool to have 42 types of jeans but no guidance through the endless choices?

Shopping is getting extreme, it’s time to rethink it all to maximise it for the modern consumer and above all else, in a changing world it’s time to change.