15 Return of the Retail Space
Many expert opinions have already pronounced the decline of offline retail and the accompanying empty city-centre stores due to powerful online competition, which, they believe, can only be prevented by sophisticated (omnichannel) concepts. However, offline retail continues to sell most goods in almost all industries and still records the highest turnovers.
The benefits of offline retail – the immediate availability and direct interaction with products – are not only obvious to consumers, but have also come to the attention of more and more online retailers, who are now looking for ways to create their own retail spaces. In contrast to offline retailers, their online counterparts pursue different aims with their offline presence. Their retail spaces are more akin to showrooms that allow customers to experience the digital range of goods and establish a connection to the digital side of business in addition to merely being aware of the brand in its offline existence. In addition, the stores belonging to online retailers are taking on the role of inner-city logistics hubs that not only enable fast, decentralized deliveries, but also form the basis for concepts like Click & Collect.
Whereas small brands use temporary pop-up and shop-in-shop concepts to make their way into retail spaces, larger companies like Amazon and Alibaba are now positioning themselves to become serious offline players. The new supermarket concept “Amazon Go”, which has no staff at all, gives us an inkling as to what intentions the e-commerce giant has and what kind of competition even offline food retailers will have to face in future.
The checkout-free supermarket
"Amazon Go" from Amazon is the first supermarket which allows customers to skip queuing and paying at checkouts. In 2017...
Pop-up stores for online retailers
The German start-up Store2be has designed a platform where online retailers can book pop-up spaces at retail stores in o...
Renting and buying from a single location
The high-end fashion outlet Neiman Marcus has partnered with the rental company Rent the Runway to open a new shop-in-sh...
Renting store space on monthly basis
The start-up Bulletin offers brands a service that enables them to rent different parts of a pop-up shop in a top New Yo...
Collecting Walmart products from a pickup station
Walmart has installed a pickup station in Oklahoma that is open 24 hours a day. It is intended to allow users to pick up...
Renting designer fashion by app
The American company Rent the Runway has opened up the biggest of its seven stores in New York and fitted it with plenty...
Zalando integrates local stores
The online retailer Zalando is looking to integrate local retailers more closely into its business. As part of the #Inte...
Integrating online into an offline store
In Düsseldorf Carlstadt, the German company Urbanara has opened the doors to its first flagship store selling home texti...
Amazon builds its first drive-up supermarket
E-commerce giant Amazon is planning brick-and-mortar grocery stores as part of its drive to conquer offline business. Th...
Flagship store for twelve hours
The Swedish developer of innovative payment technologies iZettle has opened a pop-up shop in London that enabled six of ...
Pop-up store in co-working space
The fashion brand Argent now also sells its products at the co-working space WeWork. With this cooperation with WeWork, ...
Vending machine for smart glasses
Snapchat has launched the sale of its "Spectacles" smart glasses with a decentralised sales promotion. Instead of offeri...
Pop-up stores in post offices
The Australian postal service offers e-commerce companies the chance to rent a small storefront presence to boost awaren...
Mixed reality becomes in-store customer experience
Microsoft has introduced its augmented reality headset HoloLens to a Hamburg store of the electronics retailer Saturn to...
Zalando integrates real stores
Zalando now also makes it possible for real stores to sell their products online and dispatch them from their branches. ...