For delivery and/or collection, there is Amazon Prime – and that’s getting faster with Prime Now, promising 2 hour delivery to an ever expanding number of neighbourhoods.
Me (with a growing sense of unease):
OK, Alexa. Are you telling me that airports and carriers will be competing with a new breed of retailer that offers shopping that is Everywhere + Everything + Hyper Easy? And that vast numbers of customers will love to shop this way?
Alexa (always so infuriatingly calm and soothing):
You are correct. They already love to shop in the way you describe and remember that e-commerce is still in its infancy. It is a fact that e-commerce sales grow year-on-year in all markets. Mobile devices are driving e-commerce penetration and liberate the shopping experience from the old constraints of physical space and fixed architecture.
There is a plethora of tech innovation that is rapidly vectoring on the travel retail channel. After we factor in similarly powerful digital ecosystems arriving from Google, Apple and Alibaba, then even my soothing digital voice could struggle to calm the nerves of the operators and owners of airport commercial real estate that is on the cusp of being made obsolete.
Me (trying hard to be as calm as Alexa):
OK, Alexa, Tell me, if retail sales shift online, then how could commercial real estate in airports be use and monetised?
Alexa (remaining calm and soothing):
Flight and passenger numbers are growing every year. If legacy travel retail fails to deliver sales uplifts that correspond with these increases, then airports will and should seek more sustainable propositions, formats and partners.
Certainly, for every geographical region, it’s not a question of if but rather when to design, build and operate the appropriate passenger journey of the future.
Data suggests that the scale of the opportunity for the channel will be best realised only with a radical rethink of future passenger journeys that effectively re-imagine 360 degree passenger journeys. Meaning their journeys to the airport as well as through and after the airport.
Best advice to the travel retail channel is to urgently collaborate on the new solutions for passenger journeys that strengthen omnichannel
paths to purchase and engagement. For the question of how to activate and monetise retail space, I suggest developing and agreeing new retail models that use alternative metrics to value the commercial efficiency of the GLA in IDL’s.
Advice to retailers is to be aware that there will be new players offering customers the experiences and services that they expect and prefer in an omnichannel world.
Advice to airports asset owners is to rethink the future architectural and engineering design of airports to achieve a better balance between passenger processing and customer experience.
Alexa’s advice is good
Advice to brand owners is to consider airports as opportunities to recruit and retain customers to their brands. To shift their focus from transaction of product to intimacy of interaction. Therefore, invest in brand activation assets that create customer journeys populated by multi-touchpoint and multi-sensory experiences.
Also, many commentators agree that food and beverage concepts will play a significant role in activating retail and public spaces as well as being the fantastically shareable experiences that millennials crave.
OK, and before you turn in for the night, you’ll probably want to order a case of that Sauvignon Blanc saved to your wish list. It can be delivered tomorrow at 09.00 hrs. Shall I confirm your order?