Personally, I follow international developments much more than what's happening in my city or country. The restaurant in the same building as my flat may burn down and I don't find out until a week later (true story!) but if a chain shop closes in the USA, I usually know about it.
In fact, in places like the United States, we're starting to see a very worrying trend with lots of mega-chain shops closing their doors. We're talking about giants that we grew up seeing and looking at as "too big to fail", such as Toys 'r' Us, Foot Locker, Best Buy, Macy's, GAP, and many more that aren't so well known in Portugal. Sources here and here. All of them going bankrupt or closing hundreds of shops across the country with abandoned shopping centres all over rural America.
This is frightening because the United States is usually a few years ahead of us in terms of consumer fashions. In fact, when we want to introduce something in Portugal, all we have to do is look at how it's implemented in the United States and try to get the best out of the idea (obviously adapting it to our reality).
What's happening today has a name: Amazon e-commerce. Consumer habits are changing very quickly and shops are finding it very difficult to keep up.
To begin with, fast fashion shops such as Zara, H&M and Primark are gaining ground with cheap and attractive clothes. It becomes disposable clothing, only to be worn for a few weeks or months. It's hard for a chain like GAP to compete with this.
On the other hand, the convenience and ease of online shopping is also an extremely important factor in this demise of retail shops.
Several studies show that customers are increasingly buying their clothes online because of the ease involved.
- Free delivery on low value orders
- Free exchanges and returns
- Extremely fast deliveries, in just 24 or 48 hours (in some cases, even just a few hours)
- Option of delivery to shop, pickup point or address
- Exchanges and Returns directly in the shops or via simple forms
Instead of going to a physical shop to see and try on a garment, the ease of interaction with websites allows you to make the purchase directly online and, once you know the size, you just have to wait for the garment to arrive at home - or at the shop. Serviços como o Amazon Prime com entrega no dia seguinte - ou mesmo entrega no próprio dia em alguns locais - eliminam grande parte do incómodo das compras. Free returns are another point that helps attract customers online, taking them out of the shop.
A few years ago there was talk of multichannel. The importance of having a website, social networks and a presence on various platforms to draw customers to the channel you want, in this case the shop.
Today we've evolved and are now talking about a different concept. Omnichannel. Omnichannel is more about an experience that involves all the platforms that previously existed (website, shop, social networks), allowing the customer to choose where and how they want to make their purchase, not being pulled into a particular funnel but being able to flow where they want, making the purchase as they feel most comfortable.
e.g. you go to the shop to see and try on a garment, check Facebook for a discount code and then make the purchase online in the evening from the comfort of your own home.
I was recently in England on business. Funnily enough, I spent more time in a Primark shop and a Levi's shop than I did in front of Buckingham Palace. Why is that?
Because both integrate new concepts and sales experiences. Brands are testing ways to bring customers back to physical shops and this requires a little invention and ingenuity.
The photos below are all of Levi's and its "PRINT BAR".
Levi's print bar - like Primark's - is based on a touch screen where you can choose a white t-shirt in your size and a particular image.
We check out as if it were an online shop, pay at the till and a label is printed.
Then an operator - an employee of the shop - takes a T-shirt that they have in stock, prints it on the spot and hands us our decorated T-shirt.
For those who don't see this kind of work every day, we imagine it's a different and rather exciting experience to see something being printed in direct print. Curiously, there was only one person in the queue at Primark and at Levi's everything seemed to be switched off around lunchtime.
Some considerations regarding this service:
- The same service cost £8 at Primark and £25 at Levis;
- At Primark we could choose dolls and texts related to Harry Potter and personalise them with our name, at Levi's we only had 4 pre-made designs to choose from. After talking to the company that installed the service, Primark buys licences to use certain products and designs for a few months, creating the possibility of generating new business with the same customer;
- At Primark we could choose between white and grey t-shirts, at Levi's only white.
I thought it was an interesting concept because it brought impulse buying back into the shops. The fact that it's made in front of us also creates curiosity about the product we're buying and the fact that - at Primark - it's customisable adds to the interest.
This kind of experience is very important and it's good to see decorated blouse brands wanting to experiment and stay ahead of the rest.
Whatever happens in the near future, shops will have to update to keep their customers coming through the doors, otherwise we run the risk of what happened to shops like Valentim de Carvalho (who? right!).
