Ever since technology has been incorporated into retail designs, things have been changing rather quickly. It is difficult for a layperson to imagine what the future of retail design will be like in the next 5 or 10 years. Fortunately, there are several experts in the design industry who have made predictions about the future of retail design. Their predictions are based on current trends which relate to customer experience and customer behavior. By the year 2028, we may be seeing a completely different kind of retail design than what we see today. This is how fast technology is changing the game.
Immerse the Customers
The traditional method of just selling products to customers in retail stores is gradually becoming obsolete. Retail designs of the future will need to create more immersive spaces for customers. These are spaces which are brand-friendly and motivate the customer to share their experience with other people.
Easier Transactions
A big reason that retail sales have declined in all industries over the last 10 years is due to the increase in online shopping. Consumers are no longer afraid to purchase items over the internet like they had been at the beginning of its existence. Because of this, retailers are forced to come up with new ways to make the in-store shopping experience faster and more pleasant.
We have already seen more self-checkout lanes at supermarkets and grocery stores, but that still won’t be good enough for consumers in the future. For this reason, there will be stores where customers don’t even need to check out at a register. They will just grab their items off the shelves and leave the store. Meanwhile, the computer sensors in the store will automatically detect which items they took out and then charge their account for the cost of those items. Amazon is already working on something like this for their stores.
Personalized Spaces
By the year 2025, retail designs will be influenced mainly by big data collections. Retailers will keep track of transactions and major trends taking place in the e-commerce world and then use this information to create a more personalized atmosphere in their stores. If retailers can figure out what their customers’ demands are by studying their activity on the internet, they can satisfy those demands by redesigning spaces in their stores to accommodate them. That way, when customers go into the retail stores in-person, they will see spaces which have more relevance to what they’re searching for.
Showroom Stores
People love to purchase items online so much that they even want to do it in retail stores. Retailers are likely going to convert their traditional store setting into one big showroom in the future. Instead of displaying lots of products and inventory for sale in the store, retailers will only have a few valuable items out on display for customers to see up close. Then, if they are interested in purchasing the item, there will be computers set up in the store where customers can purchase it online.
