为什么亚马逊不会扼杀零售业？一个理由足够

零售业没希望了？亚马逊真要横扫零售行业？

未必。零售业的高管认为，只要零售商不忘客户所需，谨记本行业立命之本，就不会有那一天。

设想一下，如果一家服装店的试衣间非常简陋——镜子照出的人相都是歪的，灯光像监狱里一样昏暗，顾客肯定感觉奇差。还有些思想超前的零售商布置一堆先进设施，反而影响了购物体验。

今年在洛杉矶举行的《名利场》新企业峰会期间，美国环保时装品牌Reformation创始人兼首席执行官艾尔•阿弗拉洛出席了财经媒体CNBC记者朱莉娅•布尔斯廷主持的一场座谈会。阿弗拉洛参与讨论时表示：“我觉得服装零售店真的不行了。门店运用的很多技术只是让人眼花缭乱而已。不少店家提供所谓智能化的镜子，但许多顾客只是需要正常的，照起来漂亮的镜子。”

我们知道，消费者喜欢网页上详细的介绍。为什么实体店做不到？“销量高的店如何向客户提供给高端的体验？”阿弗拉洛这样思考。

美国奢侈百货Barneys New York的首席执行官丹妮艾拉•维塔莱说，关键是要提供全方位服务。“我们身处的再也不只是零售业了，”她指出，“而是娱乐、服务、酒店、个性化服务甚至饮食……跟以往相比新体验一定要焕然一新，我认为这是当前整个行业缺失的东西。”

维塔莱坚称，实体店并没有死，“活得好好的”，但顾客迈进实体店需要充分的理由。她说：“我们要变成更依赖数据驱动的公司。我们自以为很清楚什么最适合客户，但手头的数据太过庞杂”，很难利用好数据为决策服务。换句话说，需要个性化服务。“现在流行的是不仅向客户展示，还得深入了解客户的文化，”她指出，“亚马逊是无所不包，可我们跟客户建立的是一对一关系”，这就足够确保零售商活下去。如果顾客刚买了一条黑牛仔裤，就别再继续推销牛仔裤，想办法要卖出一件搭配的白T恤。维塔莱说：“对我们来说留住（客户）是最重要的。”

法国连锁化妆品店铺品牌丝芙兰美国子公司的总裁兼首席执行官凯文•麦当劳表示赞同。他说：“如果只跟客户维持交易的关系，很亚马逊和其他公司很容易就能吞掉你。”跟客户建立情感联系，零售商才能在客户心目中摆脱商品化的标签。“假如能做到，实体店就有存在的意义，”他说，“如果不能，你就有麻烦了。”（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

审稿：夏林

Is retail dead? Will Amazon crush everyone?

No, according to industry executives—not if retailers remember what customers want and what makes them special.

Consider the lowly dressing room at an apparel store. Most make you feel terrible—the mirror is warped, the lighting is no different than that of a prison, and at forward-thinking retailers, the gadgetry gets in the way of good time.

“I feel like apparel retail shopping is really broken,” said Yael Aflalo, founder and CEO of Reformation, during a panel discussion moderated by CNBC’s Julia Boorstin at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles. “A lot of technology that’s been implemented in stores is just razzle-dazzle. A lot of people are offering smart mirrors and a lot of people want dumb, flattering mirrors.”

We know that people love the specificity of information you can get online. Why can’t you achieve that at a bricks-and-mortar store? “How do you make a high-volume store experience high-end?” Aflalo mused.

Daniella Vitale, CEO of Barneys New York, said it’s a matter of taking a holistic approach. “We’re not in the business of just retail anymore,” she said. “We’re in the business of entertainment, service, hospitality, personalization, food even…it really needs to be a different kind of experience now, and that’s something I think is lost on our entire industry.”

Bricks and mortar is not dead—“it’s quite alive,” Vitale insisted—but customers need a reason to cross the threshold of a physical retail store. “We need to become a much-more data driven company,” she said. “We think we know what’s best for our customer but we have so much data” to better inform our decisions. In other words: personalization. “It’s a very show-me, know-me culture right now,” she said. “Amazon is Amazon, but that one-on one-relationship we have” is going to help retailers survive. Don’t sell a pair of black jeans to someone who just bought them—sell them a complementary white t-shirt instead. “The retention piece is the most important for us,” Vitale said.

Calvin McDonald, president and CEO of Sephora Americas, agreed. “If you are stuck in a transactional relationship with your clients you are going to get eaten up by Amazon and other companies easily,” he said. An emotional connection will help the retailer resist being a commodity. “If you can answer that statement, there’s purpose for your physical location,” he said. “If you can’t, you’re in trouble.”