An eCommerce agency founded by an eCommerce business, our roots are firmly in retail. it's this real experience that underpins everything we do and as a team of ex-retailers, we are rightly celebrating the remarkable increase of eCommerce over the past year.

However, there's still the question of our beloved high streets and also the long-term impact the pandemic could wear on the longer term.

For many years, it's been widely reported that the main street has to pivot so as to stay. Today we stand at a transparent crisis point. While online shopping thrived, 2020 was a challenging year for brick-and-mortar retail with the beginning of 2021 showing no signs of improving just yet. Throughout the last 12 months, many businesses have fallen into administration while a variety of renowned main street names including Monsoon, Debenhams, Arcadia Group, and John Lewis, announced permanent shop closures.

However, long before the pandemic, many city centers and towns were already struggling. But now we face a wave of store closures and with it more redundancies, more empty shops, less spending power and fewer reason to venture into town.

A change in customer behavior

The pandemic changed customer behavior, pushing shopping habits to eCommerce. Data released in December predicted that global eCommerce (including automotive but excluding food and delivery sales) would equate to 17 percent of all retail sales worldwide by the top of 2020.

The pandemic didn’t stop people spending, it just pushed them to spend elsewhere. With eCommerce and Amazon cited because the main accelerants for the demise of the street, there’s no denying online shopping has been a key player but it's not operated in isolation. There are a full host of other factors that have caused significant changes.

It’s a tragic incontrovertible fact that many physical shops here today, won’t be here tomorrow. For some, COVID is the ultimate nail within the coffin. But when people can freely socialize again, they'll want to reconnect in our towns. what's the longer term of the bustling and cherished high streets we once knew?

Experiential shopping: Creating shareable experiences

It’s not new news that experiential shopping prevails within the retail world. But this sentiment has never been truer than it's now. Shopping styles are evolving, and retailers have to adapt their offerings if they need to remain relevant.

People today seek experiences. they require unique and interesting places to browse, engage and shop – something that experiential stores can deliver. Offering quite just products, experiential stores create an immersive social experience that gives brands a competitive edge by evoking an emotional and memorable response.

These physical stores are highly curated and encourage shoppers to share their experiences with others. Many individuals are even known to go to experiential stores purely to collect photos to share across their social channels and hopefully purchase an item or two along the way.

The beauty brand, Glossier, are a number one example, using areas of their flagship store to craft ‘Instagrammable’ moments as soon as you step through the door.

With social proof becoming an increasingly important element of a marketing strategy, this is often an efficient method of drawing people to your store to interact together with your brand. This approach also encourages the assembly of that all-important user-generated content (UGC) which Glossier then uses to push the brand across their own website and social channels.

Swedish furniture giant, Ikea, also creates experiential shopping experiences allowing shoppers to step into lifelike room settings complete with all the house inspiration you may need as you browse. Taking it one step further, Ikea is additionally known to organize impressive and unique events like their furnished climbing wall designed to form chatter around the brand.

In a world where eCommerce is king, experiential stores are a good way of driving customers to brick-and-mortar shops prompting the web and offline worlds to figure together instead of against one another.

The rise of click and collect

Due to the rolling closures of retail stores, click and collect has unsurprisingly grown in popularity and been adopted by the masses during the pandemic. 2020 saw a 32 percent rise within the number of outlets offering these services with the clicking and collecting market is forecasted to succeed at 9.6bn$ in 2022.

An attractive investment for retailers, click and collect can streamline the order process and reduce delivery costs while shoppers purchase from the comfort of their house before collecting from a pre-selected location. Minimizing the time spent future, click and collect services have helped to make a safer softer shopping experience for people who prefer to not spend time browsing in-store.

The pandemic has sparked the recognition of click and collect - will this service be a part of the main street innovation? Absolutely! The concept of click and collect-only stores are in talks which could offer customers the flexibility to do on and return unwanted products there and so, reducing online returns and speeding up the returns process. Click and collect stores or in-store collection points also produce the extra good thing about drawing more footfall into towns, encouraging visits to other shops while within the area.

When considering click and collect for your business, it’s important to pick out an eCommerce platform that may offer enhanced functionality allowing you to cater to your audience with ease, both online and within the planet. Using Shopify’s functionality, we implemented a click and collect service into Irish drinks retailer, O’Briens, online store allowing customers to obviously see which items are available for click and collect.

Another method for retailers to showcase their value and convenience to their customers, click and collect helps to create trust and ultimately drive sales while also leveraging the potential of omnichannel growth.

Omnichannel, over just multi-channel

You may have already heard of omnichannel. It’s a buzzword that has been thrown around for a variety of years now. However, at its core, an efficient omnichannel strategy remains a solid concept for retail innovation and one that few retailers have yet achieved.

Not to be confused with multichannel which provides shoppers with access to a spread of communication options that aren’t necessarily connected, true omnichannel not only spans multiple channels but also offers a seamless and connected experience across all of them. It doesn’t matter whether you decide to buy online, on desktop, on mobile, through social channels, or in-store, an omnichannel experience is brand-led, unified, and seamless. Set to extend in importance as eCommerce continues to grow, omnichannel is forcing retailers to adapt.

Here are a number of the effective elements accustomed to create a pleasant and connected shopping experience:

-Loyalty program: Offering a loyalty program that transfers between channels is a method to craft a seamless omnichannel experience. The Starbucks omnichannel loyalty scheme is widely considered one of the most effective there's. they will well offer a free drink once you sign on to their loyalty program through their app, but the one thing that differentiates their offering is that the ability to test and reload your loyalty card through your phone, website, in-store, or on the app. Whichever one you utilize will automatically update across all channels in real-time, allowing you to form a buying deal within the way that suits you best at that point.
-Personal shopping experiences: A joined-up CRM gives you the power to form personal shopping experiences through access to customer data including favorite products, sizes, and order history. Knowing your customers and leveraging this data across channels enables more memorable and private connections to be made. for instance, imagine a customer makes an internet order and receives the tenth discount to use on their next purchase. Their next shopping experience happens to be in-store where they’re looking for a replacement blouse. With instant access to their favored products, previous interests, and sizing, shop assistants are in an exceedingly better position to produce valuable recommendations and a private experience. Ultimately, the consumer can find and get their desired product with ease, using their 10% discount gained online, in-store.
-Combining online and offline: Combining technology with in-store shopping allows shop assistants to produce a more streamlined and enjoyable shopping experience for customers. Many stores including Burberry and Joules use iPads or similar tablets to guide customers along their shopping journey. Whether it’s for stock searches, sales processing, or ordering online while future, technology allows businesses to access up-to-date product information and do tasks for purchasers in mere clicks without a fixed point of sale.
-Interactive digital shelf: As mobile commerce continues growing in popularity, it’s no surprise that it's commencing to weave itself into the physical shopping experience too. The mobile app can supplement the in-store shopping experience, allowing customers to scan products for more information, product ratings, and reviews. An app could even be accustomed discounts or perhaps to assist locate a particular product future. Engaging with customers via a mobile app can deepen your understanding of their wants and wishes while creating a more seamless shopping experience, however, they opt to shop.

It’s clear to work out the long run of the street is going to be defined by the digital experiences that make our lives easier. Success lies in excellent service and adapting your offering per what customers want and the way they shop. Although digital technology could be a key to street innovation, an important aspect of this modification is how your employees are empowered to use it.

Regeneration of the street

With a transparent target creating prime quality, personal and unique experiences, retailers will not see the number of physical stores as a measure of success like they once did. because of this shift, it’s unlikely we are going to see all of these empty retail units transform into lively shops yet again.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. now could be the time for community engagement and asking local people what styles of shops, services, and amenities they need in their town today. This data may well be used for local economic development getting to create urban area centers that supported by what people want and want.

Not only could this be an efficient way of bringing communities into the center of towns, but it'd also generate new jobs and build a platform for more engaging shopping experiences that supported by the requirements of local people. The outcome could attract more people to measure in and around these areas while charming tourists from further afield to spice up the visitor economy and convey a way of community and vibrancy back to vacant towns.

Stifling rents and rates

Business rates and rents are long overdue for reform. Traditional retail leases were designed for traditional retail and therefore the days of 20-year long leases not work today. Equally, business rates have to be overhauled, providing a real level playing field compared to online. Retailers must be incentivized to require risks and open stores to sustain our high streets.

Real estate experts, Cushman & Wakefield, have discussed this subject fully, including the concept of partnerships between tenants and landlords leveraging a combined vision for both placemaking and driving footfall. Tenants could also be willing to pay more rent for a proactive landlord who adds value by supporting local business growth.

From retail to residential

Countless empty stores aren’t an attractive proposition to encourage people back to the main street – budding entrepreneurs and shoppers alike. What if, instead, those vacant spaces were transformed to satisfy other needs like housing requirements?

New government rules came into effect in September 2020 making it possible to convert commercial properties into homes without planning permission. By allowing commercial properties to be quickly repurposed, the revival of the street is supported, encouraging more people to measure in towns and more footfall for retailers.