Store of the Future

The store of the future, sounds great doesn’t it? Many major retailers now have some pretty amazing in store technology, but I’m not always sure my shopping experience has been improved.

Visiting a re-vamped flagship store recently, the store itself looked incredible and collecting my online order from a designated pickup point (enter my code, whirring of a robotic arm in the background and out pops my parcel) was definitely pretty cool. Having to then wait 25 minutes in a queue to return one of the items was not. I felt there was a lack of merging new tech to old processes, why was my return not as quick and easy as the collection itself?

Another experience, waiting for my husband to search for a hat he had seen online, I get distracted by an interactive pillar. I attempt to scroll though some of the images, but I quickly get bored as I can’t easily navigate the screen and I don’t actually understand what it is I’m looking at (or the purpose of it). Again, I feel like there was a missed opportunity here, surely I’m their target audience and it was a prime opportunity for them to get an additional sale.

In store technology is moving forward rapidly and there are some really exciting things available, but I feel retailers need to be embracing the old with the new. Technology for technologies sake won’t work. If the rest of the store processes haven’t been updated to work seamlessly with the tech I’m only going to get frustrated. The store of the future is within reach but there is still a little bit of work to do.