(Part 2 in a series – Magic Beans)
The use of mobile devices to make purchases is still a small fraction of the total sales in the e-commerce world. But it’s rising. Per the New York Times, “last year, people spent $25 billion on purchases made from phones and tablets,” and that’s an increase of 81 percent over the previous year. I was curious how that affected my retail clients, so I reached out to them. This post is the second in a short series of responses. My questions were: how does mobile spending affect your retail business? What about show-rooming? How do you either fight it or work with it?
Magic Beans is a Boston-based baby-gear and toy store with five locations in and around Boston. Sheri Gurock, the owner of Magic Beans, believes that as online shopping grows, the occasions that merit a trip to a physical store will take on more significance. For Magic Beans, having a baby certainly is one of those life cycle events that leads to a special shopping trip, and these expectant parents need the extra help and service found in Sheri’s stores. Furthermore, mobile shopping will have the ability to enhance the shopping experience, since, as Sheri says, “customers have access to a lot more intelligence about the products in the store.” Showrooming is a problem for non-premium brands, and not necessarily for better products. She continues, “as long as stores like ours provide a great experience and have products in stock and ready to sell, we should be able to compete.”
I agree, and it’s why at Arrowstreet, we do everything we can to create exciting retail spaces that help our clients do what they do best: serve their customers in the physical world. Here’s what we did in their Prudential Center store.
(For Part 1 of this series, click here.)
Topics: Retail