As a die hard retailer I innately believe it is our job to innovate ways to engage the consumer and draw them to us over our nearest competitor.  

Some years ago I was lucky enough to obtain a global patent for something we called 'Interactive Store Window' that was designed to;

• Catch passers by to physically 'interact' with the store window
• Provide an element of 'retail theatre' and entertain.
• Capture permission based data to 'keep in touch' long after they have gone.
• Encourage them to step inside the store.

All very exciting, and yes we made a few headlines. The patent was awarded for the data collection element - and we never made a penny from it because we were slightly ahead of our time and the country was still on dial up.

Call me old fashioned but the growth in the US driven initiative for 'Black Friday' followed by 'Cyber Monday' was always somewhat of an irritation to me. 

It smacked of the same issues that started the demise of department store group 'Debenhams' with their 'Blue Cross' events, and the painful to watch slow down, and ultimate closure of 'Top Shop' which turned into a permanent 'Sale' brand message whilst trying to compete with all those bright and shiny online retailers like ASOS and BooHoo etc.

These promotional campaigns designed to drive consumers to them over the competition eventually encouraged the consumer to hold fire on any purchases until the 'Blue Cross' event was announced and along with it all those discounts.

As footfall continues to be yet another fiscal challenge for physical retail we have been seeing staggeringly little innovation other than more discounting from brands desperate to offload stockpiles in stores, warehouses, and supply chain commitments. The only winner with this strategy is the fickle cost conscious customer who is investing in something other than your brand.

There is just over a month to go until Black Friday in November, but some fashion and lifestyle brands are gearing up to launch discounts as soon as October ends.

The retail apocalypse continues  - or does it?

There seems to be a glimmer of hope as ideation around consumer experience is at last starting to get retailers to recognise that if the customer can't come to them, they must go to where the consumer is, for now!

Every - single - one - of - your customers - are - on - SOCIAL MEDIA!

Retailers had been toying with features such as video chats and livestreaming to make e-commerce more pleasant and personable even before the coronavirus forced store closures.

Those that understood how best to 'leverage' social media, along with other consumer engagement techniques such as 'live streaming' and perhaps your own personal online 'sales associate' will be the brands of the future.

That is unless you have bought into the hype that retail is dying and not re-inventing itself.