Vital movements for the retail economy in 2017
2016 has been an insane year and it’s most reasonable to leave it behind us and think forward towards what we have to do this year. The retail economy had a decent portion of excitement too, some of it attributed to a certain web-based retailer beginning to give 2-hour delivery windows for selected goods. But we will certainly not be investigating that, we’d rather discover what the countless commercial centres of Britain should be anticipating to take place in this year. Predicated on last year’s results and the first few months of this year, we can start making rather bold forecasts for the movements that will end up controling the rest of this year. We advocate to look at the three that we, with good enough reasons, understand to be the ones that will have a larger impingement than others. Read on to find out!
Even though commercial centres are still probably going to be around for a while, they could start regarding getting rid of the word "shopping" as progressively customers are coming in for entertainment and leisure instead of exclusively to buy things. And this is unsurprising, seeing that in order to buy something one does not even have to depart from his or her home, whereas an experience is something you cannot have delivered. David Fischel intu’s CEO finds that up to a fifth of retail space at his centres is dedicated not to retail but to entertainment and other such stuff. This includes both entertainment places, like cinemas and bowling alleys, and eating venues like eateries and bars.
A thing that transformed into a more and more essential element not just of retail, but going as far as the image of the brand, is the significance of experience. Consumers want to be immersed and involved. It will not be enough for a flagship store to merely sell things in 2017, rather they should think about the varieties of things they could do to keep their loyal customers engaged and rewarded and to fall in love with the brand. The next time you walk in one of the malls that Peter S. Lowy Westfield’s co-CEO manages, be sure to peek into a flagship store to see if you will be impressed.
Tech is increasingly becoming the new standard. As augmented reality leaves the realm of concept and instead becomes a part of daily life, don’t be shocked to find that retailers are making use of this. It can on one hand empower shopping to become much easier for many people. Imagine if you’re furniture shopping or trying to pick an interior design, AR would ease all of this. But then again, technology makes things much better, if you think of contactless payments and whatnot. David Smith Brunswick Centre’s asset manager is one person having this in mind as he is encountering this brave new year.
