Tracking Your Customer Trends

# Tracking Your Customer Trends

There will always be chances to expand your business; you just have to figure out how to take advantage of them.

Part of this is tracking customer trends and keeping up with changing times . It is clear to all store owners that times customer needs are changing constantly, with technology helping accelerate these adjustments.

## Plan for Change

When adjusting your store's layout, displays, clip strips, and features, you need to think about where you see yourself in the future. You want to constantly ask where your store and company will be in 5, 10, or 20 years and then consider how to get there.

This planning is crucial since making adjustments to your store requires a great deal of capital and the understanding of what your customers expect from you.

If you don't plan ahead and aren't ready to meet changing customer demands, then your customers will find another store that can.

## Redefining Convenience

Online shopping combined with grocery delivery services has changed the game for many convenience stores, supermarkets, and other retailers. The future will probably see drone deliveries along with the stores we have today.

There will still be a place for brick-and-mortar stores. However, to stay relevant, you need to give customers want they need and want, and that requires some advance planning.

## What Experts Think Is Changing

The basic setup of a store may be the same in the future, but things will become more automated.

Thomas Frey, the senior futurist and executive director at Louisville, Colorado's DaVinci Institute, believes that stores will slowly replace employees with machines.

This reduction in general expenses will help them afford to be open 24 hours a day. In 10 or 20 years, Frey predicts that people will be able to get a drone delivery of items from convenience stores in as little as 10 minutes. He also feels that there will be fewer car owners, reducing the demand for washer fluid, oil, and other automobile-related products in convenience stores.

Frey expects these items to be replaced with marijuana, which will most likely become legal in nearly every state within 20 years.

It can be a daunting task to think about the future like this, but it is necessary.

Figure out what your business should look like in 10 or 20 years, and then start making steps to get to that goal. Start small by moving around items on clip strips and then make larger changes.