Socialize for the Next Four Years

One classic image of socializing at a retail shop is two straws stuck into the same ice cream soda. A recent shopper insights analysis by The Nielsen Company might be taken to mean the same image could serve as a suitable icon for what’s ahead.
     Considering the highly-educated guesses in this “Retail USA: What’s in Store 2016” report, here are my recommendations for small to midsize retailers:

• Provide opportunities for shopper socialization. Energy prices will continue to be a source of uncertainty for consumers. Many shopping trips will continue to be for quick pickups of items needed immediately. However, consumers are becoming more accustomed to anticipating their needs and shopping online for items in order to save money. Increasingly, shoppers who do consider coming to your store will be attracted by the entertainment value of socialization.
• Carry food-related items. Nielsen calls food “the social network of the ages.” During a time that total book sales have dropped 6%, cookbook sales have increased 10%. In drug stores, the product categories showing the fastest sales growth are edibles.
• Identify your store as much by the type of people who shop with you as by the type of products and services you carry. Between now and year 2016, divisions between consumers on income and wealth will remain or broaden, Nielsen guesses. Currently, the wealthiest 20% of Americans have already exited the recession, while the remaining 80% have not. One result is that niche marketing—an objective of small to midsize retailers who want to prevail against larger competitors—should be based on price points away from the middle of the spectrum. When appealing to both the high-income and low-income, have each set of items in different areas of your store. Shoppers will want to rub shoulders and compare notes with others they consider to be in the same social stratum as themselves.
• Forge alliances with your suppliers and with other retailers. This flavor of socializing will become more important because of the increased competition from large online retailers. Nielsen predicts that Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google will devote substantial resources to expanding sales and marketing in the four years ahead. Unless you reconfigure your business model to incorporate collaboration, you’ll find it harder to turn a profit.
• Get involved in your neighborhood. Nielsen predicts that the bricks-and-mortar stores which succeed will do so by emerging as the social centers of their communities.

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