"I had a client a few years back who planted a simple but revolutionary idea in my head. "What if online retail had been developed first?" He described a world where online was the only kind of shopping for any kind of goods and services you wanted to buy. Then, he said, imagine one day someone comes to you in that world with this wild new idea: in-person shopping."
"Suddenly, he went on, you can enter a space filled with the things you might want to buy-a space where you could touch them, try them on, smell them and taste them. To help you through this process, you'd have an advocate for these goods, perhaps even the person who chose them, sourced them or made them in the first place. That person could attest to their provenance and authenticity, as well as inspire you with stories of how they came to be."
"It's a fun thought experiment. But it's also one that I think is particularly resonant right now. In my view, today, we're sliding closer to the reverse of his thought experiment. Consider a survey by Attest, which found that more than half of consumers who responded said they foresee a future where they can no longer speak to a real person when interacting with a brand or business."
A client proposed a thought experiment imagining a world where online retail developed before in-person shopping. In that world, in-person shopping becomes a novel experience: a space where consumers can touch, try on, smell and taste goods while interacting with an advocate—possibly the person who chose, sourced or made the items—who can attest to provenance, authenticity and inspire with origin stories. Growing adoption of digital-only interactions makes it harder for consumers to speak with real people when engaging brands. Search and marketplace dynamics can hide better matches and inflate prices, undermining consumers' ability to assess real product value and threatening retail trust.
Read at Forbes
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