TOM June 2018

Page 18 T O M
GUEST CONTRIBUTION June 2018
Implementation of digitization:
„Too late, too little!“
Guest article by Katharina von Schacky, Head of Real Estate Markets Shopping at Commerz Real
In the German retail sector,
fear is on the move - fear of
digitisation. Online sales machines
such as Amazon or
Zalando are blamed for the
disappearance of numerous
stationary shops and the impending
desertification of inner
cities and their shopping
streets. A recently published
study by the IFH found that
Amazon customers ordered
an average of 41 articles from
the online giant in 2017 - twice
as many as five years ago. The
company is already considered
to play a dominant role in
the market. But aren‘t we making
it too easy on ourselves?
Katharina
von Schacky,
Head of Real
Estate Markets
Shopping
at Commerz
Real
It is true that the pressure on the
stationary trade is growing. But
it is also true that Amazon & Co.
catalysts for an already present
trend are: an ever-increasing focus
on the wishes and needs of
customers. Online retailers have
only done the homework of stationary
retailers.
Recognize the
signs of the times
and use them
When Amazon was founded 23
years ago in a garage in Seattle,
the company‘s recipe for
success was to correctly recognize
the signs of the times and
use them to its own advantage.
Even then, other retailers could
have done the same as today‘s
global corporation, but they
have never considered it necessary
to adapt their distribution
structures to the demands and
needs of customers. Although
the latter have been asking for a
faster and more convenient delivery
of goods for some time,
many retailers simply could not
or did not want to implement
this service. This is not the case
with Amazon, which today is
considered one of the most customer-oriented
companies in the
world and aggressively advertises
services designed to make
shopping even easier and more
convenient.
In addition, buying behavior on
the Internet differs fundamentally
from purchasing in traditional
retail, which can be useful
for the sale of certain product
groups. Customers ordering
toys or books on the Internet,
for example, attach more importance
to fast, uncomplicated
delivery and the evaluations of
other customers than to the possibility
of holding the product in
their hands before purchasing.
For this reason, these product
groups are still ideal for online
marketplaces today.
On the other hand, there are also
many products that customers
want to perceive haptically, examine
and try out before buying.
Food is one such example, fashion
is another. Especially in
Germany, the majority of customers
still buy food in stationary
shops.
The reason for this is above all
the deep-seated habit of the consumers
to buy things of the daily
need spontaneously without big
planning, in addition, the missing
possibility of checking the
freshness of the products before
the purchase. According to a
study by EY, only half of every
70 respondents (1.4 percent)
bought at least half of their food
online last year. On the other
hand, online platforms do compete
with the classic fashion
trade. Although online sales of
clothing have increased, many
retailers find ways, for example
via Click & Collect, to link their
online activities with offline activities
and thus make shopping
in the shop attractive for customers
or to use Click & Collect
to generate significant additional
business through collection
in the shop.
The fact that it can be worthwhile
to do one‘s digital homework
is currently particularly evident
in the cosmetics industry. Digital
innovations already have a clear
sales-promoting effect there. In
a branch of the trendy London
brand Charlotte Tilbury‘s, for
example, a customer can sit in
front of a screen that transfers a
wide variety of make-up looks
onto his own real face. Augmented
Reality - a reality extended
with the help of computers - is
the name of this digital trend.
If the customer likes one of the
make-ups, he can not only have
the „mirror image“ generated on
the computer sent to him immediately
by e-mail, but also receives
an exact list of the products
required for reapplication.
retailers and shopping
center operators
should work
together
In order to continue to improve
service in the future, it is
important that retailers and
shopping center operators in
particular work even more closely
together. If retailers were
to make their systems and thus
the availability of goods visible
to operators, the latter would be
better able to bring the range of
goods on offer into line with the
digital concept of the centre and
test new marketing possibilities.
Ultimately, the same thing is
important to us all: customer satisfaction.
Customers who want
to browse in stationary shops
as well as make use of digital
services. That‘s why we need
to take advantage of digitization
and, as landlords, work with
retailers to better meet customers‘
needs. A shop is ideally a
showroom, a warehouse and an
experience - these should be our
cornerstones.