Feel the 'theater' of shopping … - retail trade marketing - Taking Stock

Discount Store News, August 5, 1991 by Arthur Markowitz

Feel The |Theater' of Shopping . . .

Retailing is more than selling.

Failure to bridge that difference is what's holding back the electronic retail industry's growth and limiting the players in the business to niche marketing, rather than mass merchandising.

The retailing "difference" is the atmosphere, excitement, theater if you will, that shoppers can experience in a store but that consumers can't touch or feel when buying via TV, a computer or a kiosk.

This doesn't mean that electronic retailing isn't viable. The $1.9 billion in sales recorded last year by teleretailers--the Home Shopping Network and QVC--speaks for itself. Prodigy, the Electronic Mall on CompuServe, CompuCard's OnLine merchandising service and the shopping offered by other computer information services accounted for millions more in volume.

But none of these electronic formats can approach, much less provide the same shopping experience of a store. And don't think the difference doesn't matter.

Prodigy had expected, even banked on, grocery shopping being a key shopping feature. It wasn't. Some Prodigy members did buy food, but computer shopping for groceries failed--and it wasn't a question of obtaining fresh meat and produce. What the computer didn't provide was the theater of supermarket shopping, the colorful array of merchandise you can see in a food store, the aromas of the fruits, vegetables, fresh baked pastries and live lobsters in the tank.

And the theater of shopping in a discount or specialty store is also missing from electronic retailing. Shoppers want to be able to view a broad assortment of merchandise at one glance, to pick a product, examine it and then select another item if they aren't satisfied with the first or just for comparison. They want to see displays, to get an idea of how apparel will mix or match, how to use a tool or the coordinated look of domestics.

Retailing in a store setting is information, ideas, product choices and much more--the marketing foundation that builds to actual sales.

Store selling does entail some negatives: shopping only during store hours, crowds, waiting on line, discovering an item isn't available and even unpleasant and uninformed sales clerks.

Electronic retailing successfully addresses these problems. It appeals mainly to two types of consumers: those who know exactly what they want and want the convenience of buying without the need to step into a store, and those who simply don't like to shop and/or they don't have time to shop.

These two groups of customers are big niche markets. But electronic retailing will become a mass market only if and when it takes on more of the aura of store selling.