The Emerging World Of Omni Channel Retail

There has been a flurry of news in the recent past about Walmart, Amazon, Flipkart and their intended or actualized investments. The broad current flows unabated and e-tailers gain at the expense of old world brick and mortar. Entire retail segments have been disrupted, as Mumbaikars missing Rhythm house and Strand Book Stall will have doubtlessly noticed.

- Shubhranshu Singh

Yet, the impersonal and commoditized experience of e-commerce is also somewhat incomplete. To Gen Z and millennial shoppers, the old world charm and embrace of traditional big format retail is something yet to be fully experienced. India has been forced to jump straight from kirana stores and bazaars to online retailing.

Much of the world of consumption and retail as we know it now emerged towards the end of the 19th century, continued to evolve right till the decade after World War II, and from the 1950s ruled across the developed world, meeting its challenge in the expansion of online retailers. However, there is a lot of merit in incremental value from traditional full service department stores, and each behemoth – Walmart and Amazon – from opposite ends of the spectrum – is intent on developing a lead in omni channel retail.

Three things are desperately wanting in the online retail world – Finessed service, an immersive and total experience gratifying the senses and creating affiliation; meaning a local sense of community and tribe.

Therefore it is important to reflect deeply on the mode and manner in which departmental stores created modern retail till the arrival of the internet.

When department stores came to full bloom: Harrods in London, Sears and Marshall Field in Chicago,