After being in the retail e-commerce industry for over a decade, I noticed that there was an interesting trend that wasn’t supposed to happen. Stores were not going away as people had predicted. In fact, in 2022, physical store openings in the US outpaced closures for the first time in over three years. What’s behind this?

Certainly, whilst some brands closed or significantly scaled down their store networks, others like Faherty, Warby Parker and Rhone all started to open their doors and are finding success, bringing together strong e-commerce and physical presence under one roof. 

In addition to the predictions of brick-and-mortar’s demise not coming true, I also began to recognize that the tech stack currently used on e-commerce was limited to the site experience alone and had no reach into the in-store experience. With the majority of sales still coming from stores, it feels limiting to write off brick-and-mortar as unable to provide an exciting, personalized experience. You may be surprised to see what powerful results brick and mortar establishments can gain from just a few simple tweaks to their tech stack. In physical stores, consumers can touch and feel products, try them on, and get advice before making a purchase, as well as return items easily and for free – all of which is what shoppers are growing tired of not being able to do online.

With all of this in mind, I’ve turned the page on my career and began a new role at Mercaux, a composable platform that ranges from Digital Fitting Rooms to Clienteling and Next Gen POS. I’m most excited about how Mercaux is bringing physical retail to the cutting edge with the ability to transform legacy Point of Sale into a suite of composable ‘Points of Service’ solutions that are supporting the entire in-store path-to-purchase. This unified approach creates a best-in-class store experience, seamlessly connecting customer journeys across channels. You may ask – why is this so key?

Customers are blurring the lines between e-commerce and in-store shopping themselves, and it’s time for stores to follow suit. If we take just one example, customers increasingly research online, purchase offline (ROPO) and vice versa. They start journeys in one channel, such as seeing an item they like in-store that’s not available in their size. Yet if they go online, their in-store behaviors aren’t recorded as they can’t add in-store items to their online wishlist or shopping cart.

This begs the question – why are retailers still letting shopping journeys be siloed like this? With Mercaux, the gap is finally bridged. The customer scans a barcode in-store, views descriptions and availability from across all online and offline channels, and adds the item to their basket. This "Universal Basket" is now attached to the customer's omnichannel profile and accessible through any online or in-store channel in subsequent visits.

If you are a retailer or solutions provider interested in providing the best customer experience possible for customers, we should connect while at Shoptalk USA – just book a time here.