How To Rescue Middle-Class Retail: Put Experience First
Mar 23, 2021
Times are tough for middle-class retailers. Physical retail has struggled throughout the Covid-19 pandemic while online competitors have thrived. At the same time, with income inequality expanding, what Deloitte calls “the great retail bifurcation” is boosting both luxury retailers and budget stores while the middle falls away. For retailers struggling to hold a place in the middle in the face of a rapidly changing market and the ongoing shift to online shopping, bold new approaches are needed. The future doesn’t have to be bleak for physical retail — as long as we’re ready to take decisive action and execute on a strategy to put experience first. Read more at Forbes.
What is never really said in articles such as this is that when they say middle class retailers, they mean middle class retailers that are mostly publicly traded, national or at least regional. If not funded by stock market, they are funded by venture capitalists and the like, playing with resources that are not as readily available to indies.
Experiences in stores like mine start off with a greeting by name, and friendly exchanges and trusting regard for the input we give. We are there to serve, one on one, for every person that visits. So in my opinion, good indie retail is already very good at providing that which is very difficult to do at big companies.
We’re good at it, and we’re not capturing next generation people. Big is worse, but big keeps getting bigger, controlling more. We’ll just keep doing our best, trying to always tweak and fine tune and overhaul as needed.