High Tech, High Touch or Both?
By Rick Segel

What is our future? Where is independent fashion retailing going? Is the future bleak or is the worst behind us? Can we survive? Or better yet, can we thrive? Are we a white elephant, or is there someone or something coming on a white horse? I believe our future is bright enough we might have to wear sun glasses! Am I sick? Everyone knows that this is an ailing industry, with more store closings everyday. We all know that the competition is getting keener and mark ups are shrinking constantly. How could I ever make that statement that our future is bright? Let me qualify my statement just a little bit, but certainly not enough to change the spirit of such a bold prediction. The only qualification is that the new breed of successful retailers play by a new set of rules. The old standards of trying to be successful using the same old methods are truly the definition of insanity. This brave new world of retailing is focused on the customer's standard, not ours. The customer will get what they want, when they want it, at a price that they can afford — not discounted affordability. The consumer is finally getting hip to "make believe sales" and "mock outlets." The outlets are succeeding, NOT because of price, but because of depth of selection of brands in an entertaining environment with merely fair prices.

The successful retailers of the future will not advertise in newspapers, or if they do, it will be very seldom. They will use electronic media on occasion, with the exception of the Web, which will become a must for the store of the next millennium. The Web will be the store's brochure, Yellow Page ad , and catalog, all rolled into one. A store without a Web page will be a store without a sign. E-mail messages and faxes will be used, but the advertising backbone of the retailer in the near future will be highly targeted direct mail. The new standard for return in direct response advertising is now 30% and that figure is destined to rise. The line, "Half my advertising doesn't work, but I just don't know which half" will finally be buried. The future in direct mail or direct response advertising, call it what you want, will not be in massive bulk mailings. It will be in weekly small mailings, targeting small groups of customers, informing them of things that they have interest in

More and more people will be working out of their homes. More people work in front of a computer screen all day long. The amount of face to face people contact is rapidly diminishing. This virtual world in which we are living will need pressure relieving escapes. We will need to see and interact with real people. Those moments of interaction will become more important as we become slaves to high technology. Those moments are tailor made income opportunities for the retailer creative enough to understand that belonging and caring are the foundations for servicing and selling. The time we spend shopping will become something that we look forward to as opposed to the drudgery it has been in the past.

This high tech world will yearn for high touch techniques to fill a need of interaction with people. Customers will look forward to those high touch moments. Technology will help us track the customer, record, easily retrieve information, pin point the need and want, and even produce a mailing piece that will gently remind you to "come on in". We will be marketing to the individual, their wants, needs, hopes, and dreams. We will know more about our customers than ever before. Of course, that is if we ask. The retailer of the future needs that information to operate this high tech machinery. The easiest way to get it is by asking, and the best part is that the buyer will give it. Sure, price inducements and incentives will help get the information, i.e. frequent flyer programs with airlines. But that will not be the long term reason why the customer should give up vital information about their buying habits. They will do it because they will get superior service and will have a sense of belonging and loyalty to a particular store.

The days of just opening a store and expecting throngs of people streaming through the front door are over! The store of the future must be proactive in bringing individuals through the front door — individuals who are highly targeted and highly motivated to buy. They are motivated because the store has exactly what they want, at a price they can afford, and they have bonded with the store. It sounds like old fashioned loyalty and it is. It's just being handled with high tech means, leaving nothing to chance. The tables have turned — we are living in a buyer's market, not a seller's market. We must do all the things the buyer wants us to do — even change the rules of our own game.

Mass marketing is dead. It had a good long run, but it's over. Marketing to the individual will reshape us, our stores, the way both the retailer and customer think. Technology will bring us into the future and the future is Now.