Shops of future to sell sales synergy

IN five years, you may pay to go into a bricks-and-mortar shop to enjoy the luxury experience of interacting with a sales assistant.

But the shops and the shop assistant are set to be radically different.

A Future of Business report by business management solutions provider MYOB says the growing use of automation and business intelligence data is already changing the retail landscape.

The report’s author, MYOB chief technology officer Simon Raik-Allen, said that as technology progressed bricks-andmortar shops would sell experiences, not just goods.

“Bricks-and-mortar stores will become showrooms which emphasise the unique attributes of the product and allow you to select a product which will be delivered to your home within 24 hours, possibly by drone,” Mr Raik-Allen said.

Consumers would interact with a sales assistant who knows them, understands what they like and offers suggestions based on the consumer’s digital profile and latest trends.

The highly-trained and better-paid shop assistants would be tour guide, adviser, curator and expert, helping the consumer make choices and experience the latest novelties.

“You may even pay to enter the store for this interaction, regardless of your purchase,” Mr Raik-Allen said.

Alternatively, a consumer may walk into a store with no human sales assistant and instead interact with a highly-sophisticated computer program that connects with the consumer’s smart phone as they walk through the door, and proceeds to “talk” to them.

Mr Raik-Allen said the internet, the use of “big data” to provide information on consumers, their likes and movements, greater automation, the development of transport technology such as drones, and computer programs that can recognise faces and voices were just some of the things already driving change.

The internet has had a massive impact, with retailers of today complaining that consumers enter their shops, try products out and then buy the goods cheaper online.

But Mr Raik-Allen said that as life continued to become more automated people would start to crave a “human” experience.

“I love going into the record store and the guys goes: ‘Hey, Simon, I’ve got this boppy, hip music from this cool underground band that no one knows about yet!’ – that’s the kind of experience that I want,” Mr Raik-Allen said.

“Retailers should be able to monetise that experience.”