It’s no secret that retailers are afraid of being swept away by the ongoing retail apocalypse — and with good reason. This year, more than 12,000 stores are expected to close , while 50 percent of the 1,200 shopping malls across the U.S. will close by 2023 . While online stores fare better, many boutique digital shops are also threatened by the ongoing Amazon.com juggernaut. The Amazon growth narrative refuses to slow down. Last quarter, Amazon’s online sales grew by nearly 25 percent , while the company’s new brick-and-mortar venture, Amazon Go, is already showing signs of real promise. Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required, and is powered by the world’s most advanced shopping technology. Customers never have to wait in line and can pay with their online Amazon account. With Amazon Go, Amazon has reinvented the traditional retail store, integrating its digital technology to deliver the same level of convenience offline that shoppers enjoy online. At the Amazon Go store in downtown Seattle, shoppers check into the store with their smartphones using the “Amazon Go” app at a turnstile, pick up the items they want — while being watched and scanned by artificial intelligence technology — and then pay by simply leaving. As Amazon incurs upon the brick-and-mortar shopping experience, how can retailers — from grocery to big-box to specialty retail and more — galvanize to fight back and save their businesses? First, they should take a page out of Amazon’s playbook and use their brick-and-mortar presence as a more deeply integrated part of a wider omnichannel strategy, making the offline shopping experience as easy and frictionless as the online one. Every time a consumer purchases goods from Amazon, the retailer makes it easier to buy from it again […]

Read Full Story:  How to Survive the Retail Apocalypse

Source:  Total Retail