HK3’s Phil Whelan’s comment “everything old is new again” strikes a chord as we catch up for our weekly on air chat, this week to explore why online retail giants like Amazon are experimenting with opening physical bricks and mortar store and it all comes down to maturity and you can’t keep a good topic down so later in the week I caught up with Kier @ ABC Far North and Anthony Tilli @ Austereo to keep the chat alive and look at it from a regional Australian perspective.

The red cordial hyper phase online shopping era has thankfully passed and with it we are returning to demanding the best and most appropriate retail experience regardless of whether its online offline or a mixture of both and the appropriate buying experience will be dynamically be determined by the transaction and the people involved.

Amazon is reported to be opening up to 400 USA physical bookstores, and although these have not been confirmed, if they do eventuate they will be unlike the large format bookstores of old Borders and instead will the Amazon retailing secret sauce, which when boiled down is that Amazon is an incredible logistics company, that know which products customers want, where and when and can get it to them at a great price and super fast.

These stores will be merchandised with a smaller range of books personalised to that location using Amazon’s analytics of what that regions interests and past buying habits are; the books will be front facing and using an app on your mobile phone you’ll be able to explore its price, contents, reviews, buy it there and then or buy it online for delivery.  Using this business model and smarts Amazon can dramatically lower the traditional costs of running a retail store and if they wish could also use these outlets to digitally show and push anything from their vast digital product catalogue.

The other driving force is growing digital retail fatigue, with recent research finding that there are 800,000+ on line retail store making it harder to be found and the costs of key words, used to drive traffic to sites, increasingly dramatically with the likes of Macy and Nordstrom each spending around US$6.4 million annually to  get the online jump on their competitors.

In Australia we’ve had Kogan trial physical retailing, Milan Direct announcing a roll out of stores and pop up stores galore each stuffed with online retailers posing as bricks and mortar sellers , these and may others are heralding in an devolution in retailing.

We’re going back to the core of great retailing, where sales are the end purpose, but to get a sale you’ve got to give the customer what they want.

In these new blended digital physical stores, it’s not just about selling, it may be about showrooming or webrooming (digital showrooms), it may be about customer engagement, it may be about see and feel, or brand experience and progression, or for a myriad of other marketing reasons.

No longer does one size have to fit all as we finally return to a maturity level where retail is retail, customers are customers and the coming together of the two will be dictated by the where, how, when and why of the transaction and the ability of the retailer to engage and satisfy their customer.

So have a listen now

Hong Kong Radio 3 – Phil Whelan – 5 April (14 minutes 10 seconds)

ABC Far North – Kier Shorey – 12 April (11 minutes 02 seconds)

Austrero – Anthony Tilli – 12 April (4 minutes 21 seconds)