Just as we made the shift into a multi-channel retail environment, the buzz word is already outdated. Offering a store, website and smartphone access for customers is no longer enough. The National Retail Federation Conference held in New York recently revealed customers now demand a seamless shopping experience, or `omni-channel retailing’, that allows them to move from in-store to online and smartphone before they make a purchase.
“Despite what the latest buzzword might be, research and presentations at the conference revealed customers preferred to shop in stores which offered multiple channels to their customers across online, smartphone and in store, indicating an affinity with brands and the shopping experience.” – ARA
According to WGSN Retail Editor, Lorna Hall we aren’t moving towards a multi-channel environment, we are in one. “The customer lives there – it’s the retailer that is desperately playing catch up and, in some cases, is still building the house.”
Lorna is a business journalist with 11 years’ experience writing about and commentating on the fashion market. Before joining WGSN, she was the executive editor of the UK’s award-winning fashion trade magazine Drapers. As Senior Editor of the Retail Talk directory, Lorna is responsible for keeping the industry informed on best practice and innovation across all forms of retail. Lorna speaks at and chairs international apparel conferences and seminars; most recently she chaired a number of sessions at the Asia Fashion Summit in Singapore. She is a regular commentator on the fashion trade via international media.
In this chat, we explore the latest in retail trends; the power of `like’; how retailers can best prepare for the omni-channel future; and the crucial role of social media.
You have been a business journalist for 11 years commenting on the fashion market, how has this experience prepared you for your role today with WGSN?
The advantage it gives me is a long view in terms of industry perspective, that, coupled with an understanding of the cycles the retail industry goes through, help me spot what is a passing fad and what is of lasting significance.
There has been a huge shift in traditional retail with the introduction of digital marketing/e-commerce, how do you foresee retail in the future as it moves towards a multi-channel environment?
We are not moving towards a multi-channel environment we are in one. The customer lives there – it’s the retailer that is desperately playing catch up and, in some cases, is still building the house.
How can retailers best prepare for the future? and what are some of the key components retailers need to do harness within their business now?
Understand that the world is both their customer and their competitor. Judge themselves in terms of fashionability and price against those global standards. Leverage their idiosyncrasies as a tool for empowering their brand. Develop a personal and shared language between themselves and their customer. Understand that they need to be simultaneously local and global in the way they engage with customers and the way they run their business. Invest in digital natives put them in an autonomous unit and let them create that realm within your business – just leave them alone and let them innovate.
How important is social media in a fashion retailer’s business planning and marketing strategies?
It’s massively important. It’s a difficult one for retailers to comprehend and act on because the return on investment is not measurable in the way that traditional marketing is. But the “buy in“ should be that it boils down to three things which every retailer already understands: social media is about driving traffic, engendering loyalty and emotionally connecting with the customer, all of these things have been watchwords in best practice retail marketing for years. Social is just a new way to do it.
I recently heard a US retailer (the marketing director of US young fashion chain, Express) sum it up beautifully when she described social media as like “air conditioning“ what she meant by that was it should be part of your infrastructure.
‘like’ via Facebook is a huge resource retailers are now tapping into with many now selling stock via Facebook before it hits the floor, why do you think this form of selling is so powerful? And what do you predict will happen with this relationship going forward?
Actual social selling/shopping is still very much in its infancy, scratch that, it’s really still in gestation. At the moment I believe retailers shouldn’t get too hung up on the mechanics of enabling actual transactions in the social space –what they need to be focused on is how they can use the social space as a bridge to a sale.
Other than the digital advancements, what other significant changes will there be within the retail sector for the future?
Digital is driving as many changes to retail offline as it is online. So from a business model point of view it’s revolutionising the number of stores you need as a retailer and it’s reshaping what you will need to have in those stores. It’s forcing shopping centre developers to re-examine what they need to be to customers and it’s enabling small niche business’s to punch way above their weight, subvert traditional retail models and steal market share from under the nose of businesses that up until now have been category killers. In short it’s an incredibly exciting time to be in retail and incredibly challenging.
With such advancements in technology, it can be easy to forget the crucial role of the consumer as a person and not a number online – how important is it to enhance traditional customer service values and incorporate a `seamless service’ strategy that ensures the customer receives quality service online, in-store and via mobile? And will a single retailer be expected to juggle it all?
Yup, the retailer will be expected to juggle it all – “the customer expects“ and if they don’t get, they don’t come back. Judge your business by the standards you expect from other businesses when you are the customer.
Can you tell us about your plans in Australia?
I plan to talk to as many retailers as I possibly can to better understand the market and I plan to spend a lot of time in stores. Basically it’s shop, talk about shops, sleep, in that order and that’s the way I like it.
Follow Lorna Hall on Twitter.