The self-serve store has not changed since the 1950s. Tweaks have been made but the basic format of walking the aisles, squinting at the shelves to find the right item, and then waiting in line to pay has not changed in 3/4 of a century.

The pandemic has drawn retailers’ attention to honing online ordering and fulfillment, deprioritizing improvements in the physical store experience. The conflict today that presents a huge opportunity is that even online shoppers want to be in stores – but the stores need to be different. Now is the time to turn attention back to the store. And the good news is, some of the elements that online shoppers have come to appreciate can be brought to bear in the store to make for a happier, more personalized shopping experience.

Retail 5.0 puts the shopper at the center of the universe through the application of all the data that is collected. Shoppers still want to be in brick stores but getting them in the door requires creatively targeting them. Connection and personalization are the new expectations of Retail 5.0.

In this report we outline the shoppers’ view of what a store needs to be. In addition, we introduce the new WSL Retailer Performance Index and provide an advance peek at this new dataset, which reveals how effectively retailers are delivering on what shoppers say is important.

To access the full report, contact us directly or log into your WSL Library account.