Paul McGann, Managing Partner at Brass, explores the rising death toll of retail shops, and shares some tips and advice on how to stay ahead of the growth of online shopping.

Much has been written about the death of the shop. Britain used to be a nation of shopkeepers, perhaps best personified by Ronnie Barker in TV’s classic Open All Hours. But if you wander many suburban high streets now you will see empty shops are everywhere, covered in graffiti and gum.  A half empty shopping mall in Scotland was recently put up for auction with a starting bid of just a pound. Now that really is a price cut!

Many of the shops that remain occupied on the high street have been taken over by charities selling things back to us that we bought years ago.  Car parking is often inadequate or expensive, another tax on me doing business with you.

It is little wonder we’ve embraced shopping alternatives with glee.

The biggest beneficiary has been online. Shopper behaviour in Britain has changed rapidly and fundamentally over the last decade. Now, according to Kantar around 20% of all UK retail sales occur online and it is still growing fast.  Dominated by Amazon, the world’s biggest company selling everything from flowers to footwear and Fortnite games.

Driving mass adoption have been improvements in user experience online: buying power, giving better prices, and ever more efficient and convenient delivery options.

So have we seen the ‘closed’ sign being put on the shop door forever?

It is fair to say that not all retail sectors have been equally affected by the switch to online shopping, at least so far. When we shop for FMCG groceries, online shopping still only accounts for 7.2% of all spend according to Kantar Worldpanel 2018.

Until recently, Morrisons the UK’s 4^th biggest supermarket didn’t even offer it. M&S have just bought a big share in Ocado so it can start a food home delivery service for the very first time. I wonder if it was FOMO (fear of missing out) and the intense battle for market share that eventually got them involved. The supermarket costs of selling online, picking complex perishable orders across multiple temperatures and then delivering conveniently to your home nationwide are shrouded in mystery.

I for one am yet to embrace the joy of .com food shopping regularly. For me it still doesn’t deliver. And it seems the vast majority of FMCG grocery shoppers agree and still prefer to visit a shop.

Why is that?  I want to smell the fresh bread.  To browse categories.  Squeeze fruit.  Hunt out a special offer.  Try something on. Taste something new. Be intrigued by an on-pack promotion. Ask a real person for advice.

We’re actually shopping in shops more frequently for groceries than we have done for years.  Reducing the big weekly shop in preference for little and often trips. Topping up in a variety of different supermarkets, discounters and convenience stores.

Does this behaviour give us some clues about how we might reinvigorate the shop? What can shops actually do to fight back?

Here are four areas to think about:

1 Difference

Become a destination store.

If you sell the same ranges as everyone else locally then why should I visit your shop?  When products are ubiquitous the shopper defaults to price to select. And on that front, a traditional shop with higher costs may find it harder to compete.  So do yourself a favour.  Differentiate. Feature alternatives. The upturn in sales at Majestic Wine has in part been credited to a greater focus on exclusive brands. So give a local supplier or challenger brand a chance. It doesn’t have to be everything. But offer some things uniquely.

2 Excellence

Be the expert on what you sell.

Most online shopping is self-service.  You’re presented with numerous thumbnail images and expected to know what is best and choose the right thing.  Fine for basics, not so helpful for first time, considered or bespoke purchases.  You can ask a Bot for advice or read consumer reviews, but do you really trust them? No wonder online shopping returns can be as high as 30%.  Make that your advantage.  Get to know your shoppers, ask the right questions and then give great advice.

3 Experience

Shopping should be a leisure pursuit, not a chore.

A physical shop creates a whole world of possibility.  Engage and entertain shoppers.  Delight them to make them linger. Clothing retailer Next, is trialling new services in store like coffee shops, make-up bars and hairdressers to enhance the total shopping experience.  Look at the Apple shops, a brand gallery worshipping the latest technology that allows shoppers to touch, feel and try products before they buy. Think what experience could work for your shop?

4 Convenience

Be there where and when shoppers actually want to shop.

Choose locations carefully. Extend your opening hours.  Offer more convenient solutions to a variety of different shopper missions, from food on the go to gift wrapping of presents. Better still, seamlessly integrate the physical store and digital so that shoppers have the maximum choice to shop how they want to.  Add services that enhance convenience like click and collect.

Amazon Go looks likely to change the goalposts again, with high tech, high street stores on test across the world. Offering grab and go food and impulse products, shoppers can pick up what they want and simply walk out – cameras and sensors on shelf mean payment is automatically linked to their Amazon account!

The time is right for real shops to fight back.  With more innovation the future is bright.

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Steve Berry, Managing Director at EMIRAT, explores how the promotional marketing industry can respond to the decline in brick & mortar retail and movement towards online shopping. 

First we learnt the high street is in crisis, now is seems shopping centres are under threat too.  In an article published in the Telegraph in January, it was reported that 30 million Brits (58%) will use smart devices to shop this year, an increase of 12 million (66%) compared to 2018.

It cited data from BRC Springboard showing footfall declined by 3.9% in December, despite shops offering huge discounts. The article then surmised that the popularity of smartphone shopping is driving this decline, particularly with the introduction of such facilities as Apple Pay and one click purchasing.

This is obviously bad news for jobs, as retailers will be forced to downsize their physical foot print, making way for more investment online.  It’s also not great news for shopping centre owners whom will be left with a growing number of empty units and an ever dropping rental income.

There is also the small issue of peripheral purchase. In-store, the tills are littered with goodies to tempt you as you wait in line to pay, but now retailers have the problem of trying to recreate the same circumstance online, so as not to miss out on this additional revenue. Amazon cleverly replicate this by showing you what other purchasers have bought in conjunction, or anything that is compatible with what you’re buying. For example, if you are buying a clothing top they show you bottoms. If it’s an electrical device they show you power adaptors and accessories.

Retailers will obviously have to adapt and in-store offers will become online offers. But is this bad news for the promotional marketing industry? In actual fact online purchasing lends itself more to promotions, with promotional services companies linking websites seamlessly to the online store. The shopper simply need click through from the online store or app to enter!

In the short term though, how to do we help our retail colleagues address this trend and increase footfall into shopping centres again? The simple answer is through promotions. Give people a reason to go, and more than that, a reason to purchase there and then. As opposed to using it as an opportunity to browse for what they will buy online later, probably at a slight discount!

EMIRAT is a promotional risk transfer company servicing the marketing and advertising industries worldwide. EMIRAT can enable you to deliver events and promotions that create impact and drive consumers to purchase without the financial risks that can jeopardise your bottom line.

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It may be roasting outside, but for marketers, Christmas is just around the corner. Maddie Cullen of Ready Agency provides some tips on targeting consumers during the festive period

Christmas. The busiest time of year for marketers. But it doesn’t start as the nights are drawing in; most people are already planning ahead for the festive season.

Christmas is a time for increased sales, but also for increased competition. Brands fight tooth and nail to be one of the items wrapped up in a bow, stuffed in a stocking or served up for Christmas treats.

Here are a few ways brands can make sure they’re the ones under the Christmas tree this year.

Even Rudolf has one

It should come as no surprise that mobile is the top focus for brands this year. People are increasingly having ‘micro moments’, which are the quick searches and checks on their phones, giving consumers instant information at the swipe of a finger.

It’s these minutes/seconds that brands should be slotting themselves into. If a brand can be a solution to a mobile user’s query, that can be the first step on the journey to purchase.

In the last few years 42% of people planned to do all of their Christmas shopping on mobile. Brands should make sure they’ve optimised for mobile and their site is user-friendly, otherwise a busy Christmas shopper could give up and try somewhere else.

However, it’s good news for those brands that do capture the attention of an eager shopper. Research shows that people are happiest online when shopping! So customers are going to be in a good mood and therefore likely to spend more and treat themselves or others.

But it’s not just during the lead up to Christmas that brands need to be on phones. Christmas Day is actually one of the busiest mobile shopping days of the year. People may have cash burning a hole in their pockets, or a bad present to replace, but either way, they’re actively buying on Christmas day.

Like Father Christmas, be everywhere

But not everyone is doing all of their shopping on mobile – for some people the journey goes on for much longer than that.

More and more consumers are researching reviews, images and videos before buying gifts. This can take them from a product website to their Facebook chat to a celebrities Instagram account and anywhere else they can find.

People increasingly start an order in one place and finish it at another, whether that’s changing from browser to app or from desktop to phone. Omnichannel should be the word on every brand’s lips this year.

Consumers are also splitting up their shopping techniques. Some people research online and buy in-store, and some research in-store and buy online. Brands must make sure that they can accommodate both types by making it easy to buy and providing essential information at every touchpoint. Whether this is on their website or social media or on the packaging, make sure that consumers have no excuse to put the product back on the shelf! (Digital or otherwise).

In the festive season people are out and about more. Socialising takes over sitting in front of the TV or browsing on a laptop – but they’re still on their phone. This is what connects all the research consumers are doing in-store and online.

The success of the strategy can be seen when brands that aren’t embracing an omnichannel approach like Next are failing to engage. Having a nice shop front means very little if your online presence is non-existent. Like consumers, be connected.

You don’t know The Ice Queen?

If there’s one thing we’ve learn from the last year, it’s that influencers aren’t going away anytime soon.

In the winter months they have all the same benefits as usual but amplified. Christmas is the perfect time of year for influencers because people are ready to be, well, influenced. Consumers are constantly on the lookout for inspiration for gifts, decorations, food and anything they can buy to make this Christmas ‘the best one yet’.

Influencers are also great at breaking through the noise and reaching consumers that otherwise wouldn’t be aware of what a brand is selling. This is especially important at the most competitive time of the year!

One in five YouTube views are instigated by a search. This means that those viewers have a ‘lean-in’ mindset. They’re the perfect people to reach with YT pre-roll and brand partnerships. A lot of these people are actively looking for information. A carefully selected influencer can start that journey to purchase for them.

Amazon used influencers well with their Prime campaign last year. They teamed up with a few YouTubers to show how useful the service can be in the lead up to the big day. Ingrid Nilsen assembled a box of goodies for her best friend and her dog and Alex Wassabi collected gifts for his girlfriend. Each of the influencers did something personal and real and showed their millions of followers why Amazon Prime works so well, especially when Christmas shopping.

Utilising content creators generates an added advantage for those brands that do it well at Christmas.

Let’s serve dessert before mains

This year, be different.

John Lewis have set a standard for Christmas advertising to create an emotional, entertaining story. The majority of major supermarkets follow suit. But unless the copycats have a clear enough branding, people will just associate the memory of an emotional ad with John Lewis. The brands that break the mould this year will capture much more attention. Amazon’s ad last year that focused on products actually rated higher for likability than the John Lewis monster story.

That isn’t to say don’t be emotional. Christmas celebrations are rooted in feelings. Brands that lose sight of this risk offending people – as Poundland has learnt from their Elf behaving badly campaign. You can joke about Christmas but don’t go too far as to make a mockery of it. Most people love and enjoy celebrating the holiday and don’t want that feeling dragged through the dirt.

A brand that did this well was H&M, with its ad directed by Wes Anderson. It told an emotional story, but still featured a cast of characters decked out in H&M attire. The story was fun, but the brand message was clear enough that when people thought back, there wasn’t any mistaking the brand.

But remember, what worked one year isn’t guaranteed to succeed the next. People and trends change. Christmas is close to the New Year and summing up the finished year – customers want familiarity, but they want something exciting too. (As we all know from the disappointment of opening up a pair of socks again – thanks grandma!)

Brands need to keep a strong presence online but shouldn’t lack in traditional areas either. At Christmas, every touchpoint counts. Techniques that work at other times of the year, like influencers, still work at Christmas. The difference is, everything needs to be rooted in emotion.

Even if some people eat Christmas dinner after presents, we’re all still human.

Maddie Cullen is Marketing Assistant at Ready, a multi-disciplined creative agency specialising in breakthrough promotional and tactical marketing campaigns. Clients include Soap & Glory, Kiddylicious, Burt’s Bees and Molton Brown.

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