Is Retail Expecting Too Much From Stores Or Not Enough?

I keep track of store innovation – new concepts, new openings, new flagships, etc. I even keep track by city so that if I ever happen to be in a city where a lot of store innovation is happening, I can stop by and see it for myself.

But over the years of tracking store innovation, I’ve noticed that there are very few things that really seem to land. I’m talking about things that are the perfect fusion of physical location, technology infusion, store associate enablement, and ultimately, customer experience. And for the things that do land, they seem extremely difficult to sustain over time.

It’s coming up again, because in 2024, many retailers are on the record saying (or actually doing, in terms of investment) that they need to focus on the store experience. They need to make stores more compelling and “experiential” for shoppers. They recognize that Gen Z in particular values the store experience, and they value it for things that stores may have forgotten how to do well, like product discovery. And they recognize that in order for stores to continue to be a successful contribution to the bottom line, they need to be leveraged for more than we have expected stores to do in the past, whether that’s for fulfillment, customer service, marketing or brand building, or just influencing customer perception.

So why is it that Radio Flyer can add a simple test racetrack to its stores and discover the unexpected benefit of enabling a community for parents – no tech involved, unless they digitized the liability waiver? But also that a furniture store that gives its employees iPads is a “shrug” moment?

I think it comes down to one fundamental question: are we expecting too much from stores? Or, maybe a tweak on the title – are we just not delivering enough?

Do we expect too much from stores?

On the “too much” side, I find myself always wanting way more than what the retailer provided. I want more than just a digital screen. In the Radio Flyer example, putting a racetrack in the store is relatively easy – no tech needed – but coming up with the idea is really hard. It’s not just, is it the right idea, it’s navigating all of the objections to get to a point where you can actually try it and just see what you can learn. And I still think the racetrack could be helped by tech – there could be a lap counter and a leaderboard, and if the bikes are tagged then you could learn a lot from analyzing which style gets ridden the most and which ones don’t. Or also, if some items seem to be harder for kids to use than others, as evidenced by stops and starts around the track.

Levi’s just opened a “NextGen” store in Kyoto. It’s got all the usual expectations – alterations and restorations, a customization shop, drops and customizations that are unique to that store, along with tapping into local artists and cultural influences as part of the store design. Yeah, okay, that’s cool. The restoration part is new and definitely reflecting the rise of reuse. But how will the company maintain the relevancy of the “local and cultural influences”? And why, after all of that, my response is still, “But what else are you going to do?”

And I’m well aware that this jaded attitude is probably unfair. Stores are stores – for all the desire for retailtainment and experiential retail, store still ultimately have to move merchandise. It’s really difficult to escape the expectation that “the customer is here, the merchandise is here, so why aren’t you spending your time trying to get that shopper to buy what’s here?” And who can afford – and sustain – making every store a flagship level of experience?

Or do we not expect enough from stores?

The challenge is, just selling products in a store is not enough. Fair or not, every retailer may have to entertain the notion that every store does need to be a flagship-level experience. And even more than that, it needs to seamlessly integrate technology as part of the experience, and every store’s experience probably also needs to be differentiated from all the company’s other store experiences.

When I see new store concepts and there’s no sign of technology as part of the experience – whether it’s kiosks or tablets or even QR codes – I worry. Stores are disadvantaged compared to online in terms of access to rich product information, let alone anything else like inspiration or availability. When retailers don’t consider it as part of the design, they are encouraging consumers to provide for themselves – and there is no guarantee that consumers are going to start their search on the retailer’s digital properties, let alone end there. It’s even worse when the shopper turns to the store employee for that kind of information – and they’re just as limited.

The Bottom Line

It’s hard to put even more expectations on stores – it’s already a very expensive channel to operate. Putting more into that channel is just going to make it even more expensive. And it’s truly not just the tech that makes the store more expensive. It’s all the creative brainpower that needs to go into applying that technology – and all the other surrounding pieces – in an innovative way. And those age immediately as soon as they’re released into the wild, which adds a whole other level of complexity to the store experience. But without that combination of innovation, experience, and yes, technology, I think we will continue to find that stores do some cool things every once in awhile, but still have not put it together enough to deliver on higher and higher shopper expectations.