We still love getting physical

Physical stores aren’t going anywhere. And Adyen’s latest research found that consumers support this, with 59% still preferring to shop in-store. While sensationalist news headlines might try to convince us otherwise, the truth is that the internet isn’t the brick-and-mortar killer it’s been made out to be. In actual fact, the growth of the online store isn’t so much siphoning customers from high street shops as it is augmenting consumers’ physical shopping experience and bolstering brand loyalty. High street stores, and indeed the high streets themselves, can’t rest on their laurels though. Customers still crave the in-person customer journey, but the experience needs to evolve. Stores can no longer be glorified display cases, and high streets can’t simply be centres of commerce.Consumers want to socialise while they shop again, embrace the experiences that brands create and feel part of a community when they venture out onto the high streetIn this episode of Beyond Retail, we find out why we still love getting physical and what the future of in-store shopping looks like. We also look into what retailers need to do to get customers through their doors, and why the high street can’t rely solely on retail. We hear from experts across the industry, including: in-store expert and account manager at Adyen, Milou van der Lans; business and consumer insight expert, Kate Hardcastle; chair of the High Streets Task Force, Mark Robinson; lecturer in digital economy & consumer culture, Dr. Adèle Gruen; and author of Retail Recovery: How Creative Retailers Are Winning in Their Post-Apocalyptic World, Mark Pilkington.We discover how brands in third spaces, such as pubs and cafes, are playing host to a new kind of patron - the customer-worker - and find out how these businesses are adapting to host this hybrid consumer. And we uncover what it is that motivates shoppers to get offline and on to the high street in an increasingly digital world.If you want to find out more about the technology and behavioural trends influencing retail, visit https://www.adyen.com/landing/online/uk/2022/retail-report to download Adyen’s latest research report.