There"s a mall in Fergus Falls, Minnesota that looks like a ghost town from the 80s. The color scheme is ripped right out of Ferris Bueller"s Day Off, and the decor looks just as dated. Mall walkers zip past wooden benches and fake trees, barely registering the fact that 90% of the retailers moved out quite a few years ago. There"s a Dunham"s Sports on one end of the mall and a Herberger"s on the other. In between, you can stop in for a dentist visit or get your eyes checked at a clinic, but most of the spaces are boarded up and look just as vacant as the stare from a pre-teen at a family picnic.
I used to live in the town, and it was always a little perplexing. The mass exodus was a result of retailers moving to the downtown area. Yet, in recent years, malls are starting to look a little sparse for a totally different reason: People are buying from Amazon.
The retail giant is raking in the cash. The tech giant scored half of all Black Friday online sales with more to come today. Call it Cyber Monday if you want, but it"s more like Amazon has become the new Walmart, a place where many of us shop for just about anything. A better name might be Cyber Decade. Or maybe that"s Cyber Millennia
Online shopping in general is hotter than ever, mostly because shipping is so easy and cheap, products are widely available, the prices are low and getting lower, and we"re shopping more and more on mobile devices. We like the convenience more than ever. Experts now predict that physical stores will start changing in radical ways, which is a good thing because they also predict that there will be as much as one billion square feet of empty space in shopping malls in the next 5-10 years, according to a recent podcast.
I"ve noticed this trend many times recently. Whole Foods (now rather ironically owned by Amazon) is a good example of destination shopping. You go there to browse and poke around. On one recent visit, I decided to look for some alternative food choices, leaving with a grocery bag filled with mangos and a few exotic veggies. It was wonderful. And, I took a circuitous path around the store that would not have been possible as a virtual shopper. Retail has already embraced the idea of experiential shopping, offering virtual golf simulators and free facials for years. At a mall in Roseville, Minnesota, there"s a store where you can operate actual construction equipment. At the Mall of America, there"s a VR simulator where you ride a real motorcycle. It"s awesome.
But this is going to change in countless ways by 2023 and beyond. Imagine wanting to buy a pair of running shoes, some clothing, and a fitness tracker. You want to start running, so it"s not just about getting the new gear. You want to start a new habit. You decide to head to a retail store that provides an experience, not just a new way to shop. When you arrive, it feels more like you"re at an event than a store. It"s basically: Amazon who? The "clerk" (we"ll have to invent a new name for this) does a 30-minute counseling session with you and helps you pick several products to sample. You spend another hour running on a track, joined by a trainer and a few other "shoppers" (again, we"ll need a new name for them). You swap out a few products here and there, and after a few hours, you pick the ones you like. The churn for products like these is extremely low; you"re a happy customer because of the experience, not because you paid for an overpriced Fitbit.
None of this is possible if you shop online, which is one reason Amazon is starting to move out of the digital domain with physical stores. Experiential shopping also matches up nicely with another trend in society, namely that we"re all wanting to set down our smartphones and engage with real people in a physical setting. The one thing about virtual anything is that it is often a solo affair, and it"s widely known to create feelings of isolation and depression--especially with young adults who actually have money to spend
Convenience is great, but it has limits. What we"ll end up craving is not the physical act of shopping, since that is routine and a bit mundane. We"ll want to combine shopping experiences with convenience. Golf will become primarily an activity we do with other people, as it is now, even if the goal is to purchase golf-related products. We"ll say "I"m going to play golf" but we might mean we"re going to buy golf equipment. They will be synonymous. The golf course itself will become a retail store.
And many other shops will follow suit. Jewelry shopping will morph with dating. Buying a car will be more like heading to the track. Even grocery shopping will be more like going out to eat. Experience shopping will become the next big craze.
The good news is that this will start filling up the malls again, even the one in Fergus Falls. The more we use gadgets, the more we will start craving real experiences. They will play off one another, because the products we end up buying might still arrive the next day by FedEx. We"ll already love them, know how they work...and keep them long after the sale.
Do you agree? I"m curious to hear if you think shopping will change in the next ten years or so and become less about the product and more about the experience.
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