The Store Is Everywhere

By: Carol Abel, Vice President of Education, Food Marketing Institute 

Doug Stephens, the Retail Prophet, addressed the Midwinter Executive Conference crowd on January 26 in Miami, FL, and confidently countered the notion that “retail is dead,” and instead asserted, “the store is everywhere.”

From online to delivery services, Stephens discussed the trends in retail that offer convenience, but regarding the online trend, he noted that our society is at the “end of the beginning of ecommerce,” since consumers are seeking a more tactile, sensorial and more connected experience. He attributed this new beginning to the fact that the following familiar traits no longer exist:

1.      Mass media was dependably effective;

2.      Brands and retailers controlled access to products and information;

3.      Consumer preferences and tastes were largely homogenous and predictable; and

4.      The physical store was really primarily a product distribution mechanism.

Stephens offered that the way we shop has changed due to the rate of mobile adoption and how the consumer is morphing. He detailed attributes of the changing consumer, inclusive of the rise of the female consumer, but he warned, “There’s a risk in generalizing too much – the better thing to do is accept the similarities between the two sexes.” He also advised retailers to “attack the friction,” noting how retailers can address the challenges in the store, such as long wait times at checkout or a customer's reaction to an out-of-stock item. 

The food retail industry is experiencing a different kind of boom, he suggested, and the store is now “everywhere." He said, "In the old model, media would tell the brand story and create product and interest to drive traffic, now media IS the store." He advised that stores need to become better forms of media, especially since the emotional experience a shopper can have in store cannot be translated online. The Retail Prophet's call-to-action was that the store should distribute experiences instead of products. 

The session presented how to reimagine the traditional role of the merchant and Stephens prophesized, “Your real competitor is someone you don't even know yet.”