Customization and the Way forward for Retail

Over the Thanksgiving vacation, I traveled to Pennsylvania to go to household. Thanksgiving dinner — full of loads of pie, after all — was scrumptious. And the following day (Black Friday) I took a leisurely stroll by the native Boscov’s. 

Now, I sometimes don’t pay an excessive amount of consideration to Black Friday hype. I detest getting up early and have zero curiosity in preventing by hordes of individuals to get my palms on one thing I don’t actually need. However I do buy groceries on Black Friday every so often. I take a look at shops late within the day, after the frantic crowds have dispersed. And I do my finest to search out one thing that’s a genuinely whole lot — and never simply low-cost. 

That’s what introduced me to Boscov’s. 

Boscov’s is the one retailer I can recall having a powerful presence all through my childhood. I’ve fond reminiscences of going to the division retailer with my mom and getting misplaced among the many dizzying variety of clothes racks. Wandering previous the fragrance counters, the place floral scents and musky colognes wafted over me. Gazing at a counter stuffed with candies and watching my father purchase fancy truffles and chocolate-covered cherries for my mom for Christmas. 

The uninteresting beige carpeting appeared to muffle the sounds of the shop round me, enveloping me in an oddly peaceable quiet regardless of the shop’s huge dimension. That sense of peacefulness contrasted strongly with the busyness of the mall in a method that I all the time discovered enjoyable. 

And that’s nonetheless true at present. At Boscov’s, I can take my time. And I all the time discover insanely good gross sales. 

On the identical time, Boscov’s is an exception to the rule for me. Like a rising variety of folks, I do most of my procuring on-line. I sometimes order garments on-line moderately than wander round a mall or a division retailer hoping to search out one thing I like. 

It is because my tastes have modified through the years. I’m now far more intentional concerning the garments I buy. I search for particular gadgets for my wardrobe. And it’s far more environment friendly to kind one thing into Google and get 15-plus outcomes than it’s to drive to a retailer the place I’d discover one of these choices. I additionally prioritize trying to find extra sustainable manufacturers. And I’m not alone in that seek for sustainability. 

Department shops sometimes aren’t as trend-savvy as newer manufacturers. And so they’re fairly far behind when it comes to adopting extra sustainable practices.

So Boscov’s is, in some ways, from a bygone period. Department shops throughout the U.S. have been struggling for greater than a decade. They have a tendency to hold legacy manufacturers. And so they have a tendency to supply a restricted array of merchandise. 

New manufacturers are capturing millennial and Gen Z clients on-line and by social media. And 62% of U.S. consumers store on-line extra now than they did earlier than the pandemic. Given e-commerce’s explosive progress even earlier than the pandemic and COVID’s obvious endurance, that pattern appears more likely to proceed.

On-line retailers are additionally significantly better at customizing their merchandise for purchasers. And extra consumers than ever need merchandise tailor-made to their particular person wants. They need personalized streaming providers, personalized skincare merchandise, personalized grocery supply. And small, agile startups are more and more addressing that demand. 

That doesn’t essentially imply that every one brick-and-mortar retailers are doomed. In-store procuring nonetheless has its advantages — as I’ve discovered at Boscov’s. But it surely does elevate a query for buyers: What’s the way forward for retail?

Will it proceed to be a hybrid of brick-and-mortar and on-line commerce? Will we ultimately shift to do all our procuring on-line? Will shops discover different methods to make themselves helpful to clients?

Each time I go to Boscov’s, I ponder about its future. Will it adapt to new developments? Will it survive as Amazon and different on-line retailers develop?

I can’t say. However I hope it does. Boscov’s doesn’t precisely supply a personalized expertise. However for me, it does supply a novel expertise. I solely go to Boscov’s possibly yearly. It’s not the place I do most of my procuring.

However each every now and then, it’s like a blast from the previous… and it hits the spot.