The four Cs – convenience, choice, competitive prices and COVID-19 – will decide the retail battle and how it affects the structure and function of our cities.
Quiet hour is a strategy aimed at making retail spaces more inclusive for people who struggle with sensory overload, but they’re not the only ones who welcome a pause in the assault on their senses.
CBD retailers were already struggling before the pandemic. The contrast in fortunes with suburban retail activity is stark, and there are good reasons to think the shift could be permanent.
City by city, the data on CBD visitors vary with the severity of COVID-19 outbreaks and restrictions. But none of the CBDs has recovered former activity levels, and some might never fully recover.
Clothing racks won’t be going away anytime soon.
AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee
If Australia follows international trends and allows supermarkets to open pharmacies, what are the effects on neighbouring pharmacies? And when does running a business mean health care suffers?
It’s unlikely, but for both David Jones and BP, gourmet food with petrol is the next logical step.
David Jones
Marketers once liked to think they could virtually steer people through shops and malls. But it appears shoppers’ movements, possibly driven by primal instincts, aren’t so easily directed.
Businesses are weighing up the costs of queuing and using innovative ways to do away with queues, or at least make the perceptions of waiting less painful.
Michal Parzuchowski/Unsplash
What is lacking is Myer’s heritage, and the need for this to be carefully reframed and updated for the present day.
In a move that suggests physical retail stores aren’t dead, Amazon has opened three bookstores and over 60 pop-up stores in the US, and has plans for up to 2,000 grocery stores.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Urban retail space is being transformed yet again. Predictions of the demise of physical retailing in the face of online competition overlook its resilience over two centuries of disruptive innovations.
The rush of dopamine upon opening a subscription box is similar to the one experienced by gamblers.
hectore/Flickr
Department stores created many of the familiar aspects of modern retailing, from off-the rack clothing to loyalty cards. But much of their business has been taken by others.
Online retailing is a relatively new phenomenon and a small element of retailing in Africa.
Shutterstock
The rapid penetration of internet technologies in Africa provides hope for e-commerce’s continued growth. Potential online stores need to understand what draws or pushes customers away.
Selling these new bags at 15 cents each, effectively creates another revenue stream with nearly A$71 million in gross profit.
Paul Miller/AAP
Moves by major to supermarkets to only offer plastic bags for a charge could make these businesses more than a million dollars a year, but it may only have a small impact on the environment.
What will happen when Amazon comes down under?
DPA/AAP
Unlike vision or touch, sound is much more difficult to control or avoid; music in particular spills across thresholds and intrudes into situations where it is unwelcome.
Deep discounts attracted hordes of shoppers to Wal-Mart and elsewhere on Black Friday weekend.
Gunnar Rathbun/AP Images for Walmart
A mix of economic unease and fears of the growth of online shopping is pushing retailers to offer ever-steeper discounts, but there’s a better strategy to make it through the holidays in the black.
Interim Director, UWA Public Policy Institute; Associate Professor & Programme Co-ordinator (Masters of Public Policy), The University of Western Australia