Phygital Ecosystem and the Future of Retail

Phygital Ecosystem and the Future of Retail | FutureShop

Cuhaci Peterson Chief Executive Officer, Greg Simpson, was recently a featured author in the September 2021 issue of Progressive Grocer. The article is available in the print and online editions.

In the article, Simpson offers key considerations in merging physical and digital strategies to obtain the optimal store experience. The following is a quick excerpt from the article:

After 18 months of tremendous change accelerated by an enduring pandemic, the retail industry has reached an inflection point. Expanding and varying customer needs, coupled with re-emerging competition, require new ways of thinking. Or is it an old way of thinking?

The customer is always right, but for that premise to be true, then the future of grocery must be designed for the benefit of the customer, not to coerce them. It’s not the user experience that is changing, but that the customer will change it.

However, to give a better grocery experience requires connecting a series of dots that meet the evolving customer ethos. Grocery must be evaluated across all the channels, forming a network with a new portfolio. Let’s call it Retail Portfolio 2.0 – a concept centered on the entire store portfolio, addressed from the customer point of view. It requires connecting the need, the timing and the delivery method to succeed, but that success only happens when the silos of logistics, store design and construction fade away.

This isn’t a simple process. Retailers often appear just as confused and are divided in attitudes toward innovation, the ability and willingness to make capital investment, and the need to rethink the future store. Over the past two decades, retailers considered only a physical retail portfolio network. Fast-forward to today, and we see a new interconnected environment.

To read the entire article, please go here:

https://progressivegrocer.com/future-retail-phygital-ecosystem