In Case of Emergency Evolve
When looking at the state of retail, one can’t help but feel a great sense of sympathy. While retail businesses were already working furiously to regroup pre CV-19, shelter-in-place orders only created a larger gap in achieving their sales goals. Within a few months of the pandemic, we began to see a wave of household names the likes of J.Crew, J.C. Penney and Gold’s Gym file for bankruptcy. And with it difficult to predict when the shockwaves of the global crisis will end, businesses are digging deep to pull through and identify ways to secure new futures. In an effort to help identify trends and opportunities for the retail environment, we’ve teamed up with leading research firms Decision Analysts, Resonate and MRI/Simmons.
At the top of the list, retailers need to be looking for avenues to ensure the safety of their employees and customers from catching and spreading CV-19. Retailers who can identify and facilitate the greatest levels of touch-free automation for their warehouses and stores will benefit from a competitive standpoint. Retailers and their customers are ready willing and able to embrace a new way of doing business. Businesses who answer the call will find themselves ahead of the game.
Combining safety with the ever-growing lust of digital convenience presents big opportunities to experiment with online purchases for express store pickup and home delivery. This is especially true as over one-third of consumers are voicing a desire and plan to support their local small businesses much more moving forward. With many consumers becoming accustomed to purchasing everything from food and pharmaceuticals to camping equipment and cars online and then picking up locally, new habits are afoot and ripe for the fostering.
Along the lines of loyalty, consumers have been much less likely to want to try new products brands during the pandemic. Brand trust has been a growing issue for years as the most recent Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that 67% of shoppers agree with the following statement – “A good reputation may get me to try a product, but unless I come to trust the company behind the product, I will soon stop buying it.” However, with necessity always a force to be reckoned with, recent product scarcity has forced many consumers to have to try new brands, trading both up and down. For the first time many consumers have been dabbling in generic and store brands, with surprising great satisfaction and plans to continue. Analogously, many stores are seeing new customers based on the store’s proximity, hours of operation and health concerns.
Though difficult to embrace the current state of affairs as a moment of opportunity, retailers who can creatively adapt and pivot to the new contours of consumers’ post CV-19 mindsets may just find themselves on a new road to success and revitalization. This window in time presents dynamic opportunities for brands to build and foster new relationships with consumers like never before.
Along those lines, we are here to help chart a course to your new retail future. Our highly experienced group of nimble problem solvers are ready to pinpoint your greatest opportunities and how to move accordingly.
