Is Perception Reality?

Today’s political climate, paired with the 24-hour news cycle, has certainly taught us the importance of reading past the headlines. The explosion of “news” outlets, particularly online, has created a world in which we have to go beyond the soundbite to get closer to an approximation of the truth.

If you’re like me, you’ve grown weary of the barrage of news stories extolling the death of retail and the obsolescence of the physical store. Yes, retail is changing, and quickly. Yes, e-commerce is partly responsible – no doubt about that.

But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find solid evidence that though our industry is in uncharted territory, the future might not be quite as bleak as some might have us believe. Here, you’ll find the results of a study conducted by IBM and the National Retail Federation studying Generation Z, the group of consumers following millennials. Among the insights uncovered, 67 percent of Gen Zers prefer shopping in stores as opposed to online “most of the time,” and another 31 percent prefer it “some of the time.”  

And this phenomenon holds up among American consumers in general. In fact, a Pew Research Center study from December 2016, titled “Online Shopping and E-Commerce,” found that while eight in 10 Americans are online shoppers, 64 percent of U.S. consumers still prefer to purchase items from a physical store. 

To discount the retail revolution occurring due to consumers’ increasing reliance on their mobile devices to shop for and research products would be foolish. Though the perception may be that we’re in the midst of a “retail apocalypse,” the reality is that our market is changing, sometimes more quickly than we’d like. In the end, though, it is the consumer who will tell us what she wants and how she wants to shop for it — whether that’s in store, online, or more likely, a balance of the two.