Shopping used to mean planning a day out visiting your favourite stores. Fast-forward to the present, and we all can do the same thing in a few clicks thanks to the prolific growth of online retail.

It was an adapt-or-perish scenario that forced even the most traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to have an online presence. However, for many retailers, this new digital channel grew in isolation from existing physical channels. The result? There was nothing that bound the offline and online experience together. Today, a new model is emerging as the smartest retailers are embracing unified retail. By bringing together what shoppers love best about both physical and digital shopping, retailers are delivering a seamless blend of the two.

Past Perfect meets Future Proof
Did you know that 62% of shoppers still prefer to shop in-store? It seems that no matter how immersive they’ve become, online shopping experiences haven’t replaced the real thing. 28% of millennials still turn to face-to-face retail support in the first instance when they can’t find what they’re looking for online.

Blurring the lines between offline and online
Is it possible to enjoy an in-store shopping experience with the seamlessness of an online purchase? Just look at the checkout-free ‘Amazon Go’ stores coming to the US. Customers can walk around, pick up groceries, and have them automatically added to their Prime account – all without queuing at a checkout.

Try before you buy
With unified retail, a retail store with no physical inventory is entirely possible. In fact, the now-Walmart-owned menswear brand Bonobos took this idea and ran with it. Their stores only showcase items, so staff can focus solely on the customer experience – delivering the kind of 1-on-1 attention that drives brand loyalty, while customer purchases, either online or in-store, are dispatched from a fulfillment center.

It’s good to be present in the future
Unlike its digital competition, a brick-and-mortar retailer already has an established presence on the high street. And in the new world of unified retail this property portfolio offers a key advantage over younger online retailers, making it easier for them to deliver the best of both worlds.

Retail has come a long way, from in-store sales assistants noting customer preferences on their tablets to marketing teams using those insights to deliver more relevant offers – connecting online and offline is going to let retailers engage their customers like never before. The retail experience has indeed come a full circle.

Source: Salesforce.com