Why Consumers Crave In-Store Experiences

Online retailers’ expansion into brick-and-mortar isn't about leveraging price as a competitive advantage, it's about finding new ways to connect with the marketplace by tapping into the value propositions at the heart of the in-store experience.

• Human interaction: Online buying experiences are quick and convenient, but they don't offer the personal, human interaction that consumers get in-store. Brick-and-mortar retailers understand that strategic interactions with store personnel drive long-term customer loyalty and can be used to improve sales revenues and increase average order size by as much as 35 percent. Successful e-tailers have done a great job leveraging product recommendations online — now they're learning how to reap the benefits of human recommendations and interactions in a physical store setting.
• Product demos: Leading online brands like Google and eBay are starting to use brick-and-mortar as a high-touch way to demonstrate their products to consumers. The need for in-store product demos is particularly relevant for technology products, a category in which consumers demand the ability to try out products in a supported environment. By offering hands-on product experiences in an atmosphere populated by knowledgeable sales associates, brands can gain a significant advantage over companies that only sell their products online.
• Tangible product interactions: Some product categories are simply more conducive to in-store shopping experiences. For example, clothing and furniture are high-touch products that consumers prefer to experience up close before they commit to a purchase. Since style, appearance and fit are important elements in the buying process for high-touch products, in-store sales associates can play an important role in confirming and reinforcing consumer buying decisions.
• Hybrid experiences: In the brick-and-mortar space, cross-channel retailers have the ability to create "hybrid" experiences for consumers. The gap between in-store and online is rapidly closing as consumers increasingly rely on mobile technologies during in-store shopping excursions. By combining online and brick-and-mortar programs with the latest technologies like Google Glasses or QR codes, retailers can generate truly unique experiences that are impossible to reproduce in either the online-only or in-store only spaces.

The decision to expand a digital presence into the brick-and-mortar universe isn't necessarily the right move for all product categories. Repeat purchases and items that can be easily evaluated via digital images or online product descriptions are well-suited for the e-commerce space.