Retail stores – what works

Shopping and different generations.

Retail stores still matter. We may conduct more and more research online, but we still pop to the shops as shopping becomes more of an experience.

GetApp, a subset of Gartner Digital Markets and a technology research company, conducted research into retail shopping. They surveyed 500 people across the US, to explore preferences in-store.

Key findings were

Unsurprisingly, different age groups want different in-store experiences
Millennials are less than impressed by state of the art in-store tech
Men are more impressed by in-store tech than women.
Point of purchase displays are the most impressive strategy marketing strategy among women.

Do salespeople matter in retail stores?

When it comes to the age of shoppers it seems that, older customers are more interested in seeing salespeople in store than younger consumers.

Almost half of over-55s questioned (45.4%) are more enthused by the presence of salespeople than any other retail marketing strategy.

In the case of under-25s, only 24.5% said having salespeople on the ground was the most impressive thing for them about a store.

Does in-store tech work?

In-store tech like video walls, wayfinding kiosks impresses people less than point of sale displays and innovative use of in-store real estate.

The age group that showed most interest in in-store tech were 45-54 year-olds (19.7% put this at the top of their impressiveness list), while the least impressed with tech were the 25-34 year-olds, with only 8.3% saying it impressed them more than anything else in a store.