- They incline to visit stores
- Seek relaxation, entertainment
Seeking respite from work-from-home culture and online shopping mechanism, people are venturing out rather slowly to buy goods offline. They are visiting shopping malls and stores to buy goods directly, according to a consulting firm CBRE South Asia Private Limited. A report brought out by it titled: “The retail perspective on experience and its impact on real estate” brought out several interesting things to light.
Online shopping is not able to fulfill all the retail goods needs of the people. The factors that influence people from visiting stores is are going on an outing, visiting stores to feel the goods they want buy by the sense of touch, and taking a break from routine life and so on. Close on the heels of disappearance of the pandemic situation, the footfalls to the places of entertainment have increased and it improved further in the second quarter of the current year. Retail activities have picked up 100 per cent from quarter to next quarter, it said. The growth is as good as 160 per cent in the first half of 2022. However, it maintained that the online shopping trend is continuing rather strongly. At the same time, several have been evincing interest to visit the retail stores physically, registering growth in this segment.
Reasons for offline shopping
- Inspecting goods prior to purchasing
- Freedom of selecting the goods of one’s choice
- Because of comfortable offline shopping
- Enjoying moving around the shop as they buy goods
- Not keen to pay shipping charges
- Getting what they want immediately across the counter
- Accessing attractive sales offers and discounts
- To search for goods that are not available online
Consumers who had confined themselves to their homes for nearly two years have been recovering from the situation with restoring of normalcy. People are seen going on outings and embarking on pleasure trips as was done prior to the pandemic situation. In this backdrop, they prefer offline shopping compared to the online shopping. They are willing to visit stores, the CBRE report indicated.
To bridge the gap between the retailers and buyers, the stores have been adopting various strategies to diversify their brand portfolios. Explaining the impact of the latest developments in retail sector on real estate sector, CBRE Chairman Ashman Magazine said, “The physical retail locations should develop in such a way to woo the people to them. I believe that the retail business activity has reached pre-Covid level. The Covid-19 changed the preferences of the consumers. In this backdrop, the real estate sector people should think about what they should do to improve real values.” In the changed context, the plug-n-play retail outlets enjoy good demand, especially small and independent firms are inclined towards such facilities, the report said. Efforts are under way to attract customers towards the stores by decorating them with various design themes, it said.
