Brick and mortar stores are losing popularity, traditional shopping centers shutting down, while share prices of eCommerce platforms such as Amazon and Alibaba are skyrocketing.
Recently, a new term called ‘New Retail’ is often seen on press. ‘New Retail’ is interpreted as empowering physical stores with technology and online platform. But what does this exactly mean?
At the end of the day, ‘New Retail’ vs ‘Traditional retail’ is simply a competition of customer traffic between physical store and online shops.
What would be a great integration of physical and online stores?
A good potential idea would be pop-up store.
In the future, the shopping center we see today might become an exhibition center where pop up stores are set up on a regular basis. What this allows is, the traffic will come from online platforms, and it can attract a huge traffic without having to maintain a physical store 365 days a year.
What people like today is change and experience. This is why Zara and H&M are able to do extremely well despite of downturn in physical retails – both have extremely short product cycle to present new lines.
Imagine every time you go to a shopping center and there are different pop up stores / events going on. That would give physical stores a new life.
Robert Luo 