What to expect to have for merchandising in 2017
2016 will be remembered as an insane year and it’s best to set it behind us and think forward towards what we want to do this year. The retail industry had a fair portion of excitement likewise, much of it attributed to a certain online retailer starting to give 2-hour delivery windows for specific offerings. But we won’t be taking a look at that, we’d rather see what the numerous shopping malls of Britain should be expecting to occur in this year. Based on last year’s performance and the first couple of months of this year, we can start making quite brave projections for the movements that will end up dominating the rest of this year. We recommend to look at the three which we, with suitable reasons, consider to be the ones that will have a larger impingement than others. Keep reading to find out!
A factor that transformed into an increasingly important element not merely of retail, but going as far as the concept of the brand, is the significance of experience. Clients want to be absorbed and engaged. It won’t be enough for a flagship store to simply sell things in 2017, rather they should think about the kinds of things they could do to keep their faithful 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.
While shopping centers are still likely to be around for a while, they could start evaluating dropping the word "shopping" as increasingly folks are coming in for recreation and leisure as opposed to solely to buy things. And this is unsurprising, due to the fact in order to buy something one does not even have to depart from his or her home, whereas an experience is a thing you are unable to 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 stuff like that. This includes both entertainment sites, like cinemas and bowling alleys, and eating venues like restaurants and bars.
Tech is progressively becoming the new normal. As augmented reality leaves the realm of concept and instead becomes a part of daily life, don’t be astonished to find that retailers are making use of this. It can on one hand enable shopping to become much easier for many people. Imagine if you’re furniture shopping or trying to pick an interior design, AR would simplify all of this. But then again, technology makes things much quicker, if you think of contactless payments and whatnot. David Smith Brunswick Centre’s asset manager is one individual having this in mind as he is encountering this brave new year.
