IN-STORE WILL BE MORE LIKE ONLINE

   Think of your favorite store.  Do the people who work there know you?  Bet they do - and that's partly why you like to shop there.  My daughter loves our local Subway because they always know that she’s “six-inch Italian chicken breast toasted with lettuce & lite mayo.”  They know her.  And that’s part of the reason we like online shopping.  We share information online and feel amazed that they know what we’ve bought before, what others like us have bought and when we have a birthday!  Duh.  They capture and leverage information.

   In-store experiences will become more like online – interactive and personalized – as we get comfortable sharing more information and doing so becomes seamless.  Imagine someone greeting you in a store with a tablet that includes, with your permission, your recent online searches, purchase history, sizes, preferences, etc.  They could help you successfully find and purchase goods.  Shopping becomes better.  Everybody wins.  

   The technology is already available to make these in-store experiences more online-like.  Barriers are (a) retailers investing in equipment, (b) staff training and (c) shoppers getting comfortable with the intimacy.  Since we already share much online, notwithstanding Target’s recent security breach, and we actually appreciate feeling like we matter to the store associate, I don’t see the last one stopping in-store shoppers from having in-store experiences that rival – or exceed – the best online shopping experiences.

   What examples are YOU seeing of in-store becoming more like online shopping?