For much of the past decade, retailers and mall developers have been working hard to give shoppers reasons to come out from behind their screens and buy from physical stores.

Retail as Theater
The idea of “retail as theater” took hold, particularly among department stores. Meanwhile, malls encouraged, developed and recruited activities to engage kids and their parents to get them to both visit and stay longer. The idea was to give consumers something not available online.

• Nike installed basketball courts to test-drive sneakers live
• B8ta let shoppers try out new technology
• Camp created a rotating selection of toys to play as well as in-store cooking and craft classes
• Macy’s brought in retail-preneur Rachel Shechtman to translate her constantly evolving “Story” retail concept to its emporiums
• Some brands developed their own pure play store experiences, such as The Crayola Experience and the licensed Nerf Challenge.

And what becomes of tables brimming with Lego blocks when the toy store goes contactless?

Rethinking
The fact is, most of these merchandising concepts, designed to promote the “you gotta be there” feel, are being rethought as retailers necessarily focus on keeping shoppers safe – and feeling secure.

Shechtman has now left Macy’s and the department store is shifting spending to its digital business to attract and keep new customers, a huge departure from when CEO Jeff Gennette unveiled Story in April 2019 and hailed it as means to attract new business.

“At the moment safety is of paramount importance to retailers and they need to figure that out before they expand or move onto new concepts,” says Project Partners Network’s Leigh Ann Schwarzkopf. “Retailers are still going to need to entertain, surprise and delight customers so [in-store] experiences aren’t going away” as a way to drive store traffic.

Changing
Fragrance, cosmetics and skin cream samples, once freely applied to shoppers’ skin, will now be replaced by individually packaged versions. Trying on clothes may become a thing of the past, or for retailers that try to maintain the practice, how to sanitize unpurchased items that were tried now becomes a consideration.

Store-within-a-store formats will shift to more open design to comply with spacing mandates — Louis Vuitton unveiled a circular display and fixtures when it re-opened in Paris in May to improve customer traffic flow – and capacity limits. B8ta has added safety protocols for its displays at Macy’s and Toys R Us and also has added an option to its web site for booking a “virtual” appointment to learn about product specs and features from a home or office.

The effort to bring an in-store experience online will continue, perhaps in some hybrid form. For example, says said Joe Pine, co-author of “The Experience Economy,” in-store demonstrations potentially could be live-streamed to online shoppers.

One thing is clear – “change” has become the most common experience of all.