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Retail: Art, shopping and the lust for intimate pleasures

Although business in continental Europe has been difficult of late, other parts of the world, and especially the middle and luxury markets of India, Russia and China, have grown beyond expectation. Still, the future for retailers, certainly in OECD countries, is full of challenges.

The first concerns price wars. Discounting has obvious appeal, but it is a one-way road. Expect more retailers to reverse tracks and head upmarket - especially in a climate of Nu Austerity (see Viewpoint #20). However, far more of a challenge to bricks-and-mortar retailers is their relationship with the web. To compete offline, retailers will have to forsake the square-metre return principle for experience-driven shopping. They will have to cope with increasingly fragmenting consumer groups and they will have to embed technology into their bricks and mortar to allow a cross-over between real and virtual channels. As stated in our article Immersive Retailing (page 132), ‘The evolved consumer is constantly live (is the right word in original?) and sees no distinction between online and offline worlds. Retailers who don’t keep up with this seamless lifestyle will lose out on business.’