The clicks and mortar future for retail post-coronavirus

The clicks and mortar future for retail post-coronavirus

“Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping.” Gertrude Stein's line may have been funny once but doesn't ring quite as true now. When she wrote it, a bar code merely referred to what you should wear to a soirée at the Waldorf. A smart card was a birthday message from Dorothy Parker. Even Macy's, the grand dame of the US retail scene, had only just started experimenting with event marketing, having launched their first Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924 – just over two years after the first ever shopping mall opened in Kansas City.

Back then, retail was fun. And big. Customer experience counted for everything. But what of it today? It was a question I tried to answer at last month's Arabian Business Forum during a panel that allowed retailers to step out of the path of the speeding e-commerce juggernaut for a few precious hours. To summarise: It's complicated.

According to the PWC Global Insights Survey, 88 percent of retail CEOs in the region rate digital as their key priority for 2021 and beyond. And cloud platform Twilio have stated that consumer digital literacy advanced an incredible six years in just six months, thanks