While we’re not sure “warehousization” is a real word, the trend is a real thing. With the convenience of online shopping luring consumers away from the traditional brick-and-mortar experience, many retailers have somehow arrived at the belief that real-world retail should follow suit.
And that is a profound error.
Our online culture has had the effect of leading all kinds of businesses to believe that what the consumer wants is a human-free experience. Perhaps that’s true for some people. But most of us enjoy the element of human contact.
The self-checkout trap.
Let’s look at the large-scale grocery chain self-checkout “experience”. It’s not an experience at all. In the guise of convenience, the self-checkout has become a traditional retail trap. Gone is the human contact (except in those instances in which the checkout malfunctions) many people enjoy as part of their shopping experience.
The same is true of any facet of retail from which the human element has been removed. Anyone who’s been to an airport recently can attest to the fact that the check-in kiosks don’t offer the same experience as interacting with a flesh and blood person.
In these days of online hotel check-ins and online shopping, the human element is increasingly being removed in favor of a convenience which feels impersonal. While convenient, it must be admitted that these innovations go a long way toward unraveling some of the social fabric that makes our society pleasant to live in.
While not all interactions are desired, at least some are required because humans are inherently social animals.
Your store isn’t a warehouse.
While it may be tempting for some retailers to submit to the self-checkout culture, they need to ask themselves one important question: if the human element is gone, what distinguishes them from an online retailer?
In short, very little. The customer must still leave the house to come to you. If there’s very little in the way of experience by way of human interaction, what’s the attraction? Why shouldn’t your shoppers sit at home and order online?
Your store is a traditional retail outlet, not a warehouse with pickers and packers throwing boxes on a conveyer belt. That means creating an inviting, welcoming atmosphere which calls to those of us in the world who like to interact with other people.
Which is most of us.
Clearly, the way forward is to invest in setting yourself apart from the self-checkout culture by putting the brightest and best on your sales floor and training them to be the face of your brand.
All that said, technology is still your friend. But using it well means integrating it with your in-store humanity, not allowing it to become the totality of your brand.
How to avoid the warehousization of your retail store is to embrace what you are – a traditional retailer, with a human face, creating an experience for shoppers that stands out as superior and intentionally pursued.
Contact Clip Strip Corp. to discover our line of retail POP display supports.