AI assistants, social media shopping, immersive shopping experiences aided by augmented reality, click and collect…The number of new shopping formats and possibilities boosted by the development of technologies is long and has been increasing, both inside and outside the physical store. If at the very beginning some experts predicted that online stores would grow at the expense of physical stores, today it is clear that the future of shopping is phygital (physical + digital), and therefore both physical and online stores will be part of consumers shopping habits. This trend is demonstrated by studies that show that, while online shopping continues to grow after the pandemic, sales in physical stores have returned to pre-pandemic levels (PwC’s December 2021 Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey).
However, while physical stores will not disappear anytime soon, their meaning has completely changed. From a place of transactions, where consumers used to go to purchase products, they have become a place of experiences, where they get in touch with products through different senses, such as touch, smell and taste. The mere acquisition of a product is no longer a sufficient reason to motivate consumers to visit stores, so to attract them, companies must develop activities that create positive and memorable experiences involving cognitive, emotional, behavioural, sensorial, and social components. For this, they can use new technologies to reduce ‘pain points’, increase convenience, and make the whole experience more pleasant. For example, Carrefour recently launched Carrefour Flash in Paris, a fully digitally-connected store that uses Amazon Go technology, which allows consumers to choose products in the store and go directly to the check-out, where their baskets are automatically displayed in a tablet. Then all they need to do is make contactless payment or input codes to finish the purchase. Another example is Nespresso’s new flagship store, initially opened in Vienna, where consumers can access immersive rooms to digitally interact with top chefs and coffee farmers to learn about coffee-blending, characteristics and the sustainable activities developed by the company.
At the core of this phygital trend there is a new consumer, who expects companies to create seamless and consistent shopping experiences. For example, they want to be able to seamlessly navigate from the company’s website to the physical store, and vice versa. These omnichannel consumers, who are more empowered than ever, want to decide when, where and how to shop. To delight and engage them, companies need to use new technologies in creative and unexpected ways. This is the case of the ‘store mode’ concept offered by Zara, initially in Spain and later extended to UK, Japan, Europe and the US, which allows consumers to use the company’s app to check the availability of a product in a physical store, buy it and collect it within 30 minutes. If they don’t want to buy the product before seeing it physically, they can use a geolocation function to find the product in-store and book a fitting room to try it out.
Shopping experiences can also be linked to other activities consumers enjoy, such as spending time on social media. In this regard, companies have developed social shopping activities, which allow consumers to interact with others, both face-to-face and online through social media platforms. This is already the case in some beauty companies, like Sephora, that has implemented the Facebook Live Fridays, where consumers can watch videos, discuss with influencers and other consumers about products, and buy them directly on Facebook.
However, since new technologies are developing at a very quick pace, what can companies do to ensure that they are not moving in the wrong direction in this future shopping scenario? Above all, they must focus on their consumers. The future of shopping relies on a deep knowledge of consumers’ intrinsic motivations and an understanding that, for them, there are no perceived barriers between online and offline. New technologies, in this context, are a means of providing richer and better shopping experiences that meet and exceed customers’ needs and desires across distinct marketing channels and at different stages of the customer journey.
