By G. Wayne Miller
Journal Staff Writer
The Providence Journal
As the future unfolds, expect the battle between brick-and-mortar
stores and online retailers to continue. The ultimate winner will be
the consumer, who can expect new shopping experiences.
So predicts Ruby Roy Dholakia, professor of marketing and electronic
commerce at the University of Rhode Island’s College of Business
Administration.
Start with online, where someday you may meet Virtual Jane, the cyber
version of that likeable salesperson you encounter today in an actual
store.
“When I go clothes shopping,” Dholakia says, “it’s not just that I
like to look at the colors, the fashions, the styles –– I also like to
converse with the salesperson and seek her advice and things like
that.” It’s part of the pleasure of shopping, what’s known in
Dholakia’s field as the “hedonic” experience some seek when buying.
“The electronic stores are saying: how can I offer that? How can I
make it interactive?”
Some sites today offer live chats with customer representatives, but
these real if distant people change day by day and are mostly
faceless. Virtual Jane would have a face. You would see her on your
screen –– and she would see you, through the camera on your computer
or mobile device.
But Jane, like her brick-and-mortar counterpart, would do more than
look and talk.
“Why do you want to go back to the same person in the store?” Dholakia
says. “It’s because they know you. It’s encoded in their memory.”
Virtual Jane (or Joe) would have memory of you, too –– a digital
profile created from data collected during previous shopping and
interactions, and stored on a chip on a server somewhere out there.
With face-recognition technology, Jane would be able to identify you
when you signed on –– you would be, after all, not just anyone. Shemight even ask how the weather is, there in that (real-life) community
where you live.
Looking beyond Virtual Jane and Joe, whose advent is not too distant,
Dholakia imagines technology that would add to the two senses that now
comprise the online shopping experience: sight and sound. Touch ––
often important to a shopper, think: buying towels or sheets –– could
be coming to your screen.
“They would have this sort of virtual hand, like a glove, that you
could manipulate. The hand would come up on the screen and you could
touch it and it would signal to you,” Dholakia says. “I’m sure they
will map out the sense of touch and say, ‘OK, this triggers softness,this triggers roughness, this triggers whatever.’ ”
Smell could also be in the (more-distant) online future, too, Dholakia
says.
But as sophisticated as the online shopping experience may become,
Dholakia says, it will never completely replace the traditional store.
“I do not see brick-and-mortar totally going away –– ever,” she says.
She notes that not even online retail giant amazon.com or online
grocer Peapod can deliver a product immediately. And sometimes,
immediacy is paramount.
“There are lots of occasions, what we call ‘situational reasons,’ when
you cannot plan ahead so much to do the shopping and then wait for the
delivery –– the classic case of running out of milk or running out of
bread. Even if Peapod delivers and delivers conveniently, it still
requires some level of planning. It’s always faster to just go pick up.”
As traditional retailing competes with its virtual relative, Dholakia
says, businesses will have to do more than satisfy immediate need. She
envisions more entertainment options at malls –– going beyond food
courts and cineplexes to video gaming on larger screens that a shopper
would have at home.
“Eventually, they’ll have to find tenants who can make money from that
entertainment. I don’t know what that will be but I think they will
have to offer that.”
And traditional retailers, the professor says, will benefit from
shifting demographics –– and the fact that no online site can surpass
the pleasures available in a store, at least in the foreseeable future.
“We are an aging society,” Dholakia says. “When you retire, you have
more time on your hands.” What she calls “time-poor” shoppers ––
working people who like the speed of online buying –– will no longer
be under the gun when they no longer have to punch a clock. They will
have time to stop and smell the roses, literally.
“Shopping is still a pretty cheap and hedonic experience –– you like
all the sensual gratifications you get. Look at what a grocery store
has become. Even if I don’t need flowers, I like to take my cart by
the flowers because I like to look at the flowers. There are all these
sights, sounds. Everything is there.”
More on Dholakia and her research is at http://www.cba.uri.edu/faculty/inbrief/rdholakia/
gwmiller@projo.com
Found at:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/shop_tomorrow_07-20-09_GCEVHI3_v12.37ce78a.html=
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