“It’s become really clear we don’t sell anything people need, we sell things people want,” Nordstrom’s Pete Nordstrom said at the start of today’s Vogue Global Conversations. Nordstrom was in a discussion with Vogue Italia and L’uomo Vogue’s Emanuele Farneti, Tory Burch’s Pierre-Yves Roussel, and La Rinascente’s Vittorio Radice, talking about the shutdown of stores due to the coronavirus pandemic and how physical retail can move forward.
“I think the most important thing to recognize is what Pete was saying about want versus need,” said Radice, with Roussel adding, “we’re in the business of creating desire and emotion and we always should come back to that. I think we have to be even better than what we were doing before.”
“I think all three of us are strong believers in brick-and-mortar,” Radice continued. “The question is how this brick-and-mortar can adapt to the future. We all have location, rents, shops, windows, a configuration of stores—is that going to be the language of the future?”
Here, highlights from their discussion.
It’s Not E-Commerce or Physical Retail—It’s Both
“The idea of brick-and-mortar as a standalone thing, particularly in the US, that’s a bit of an antiquated thought,” said Nordstom. “People have pivoted to a dynamic over the last several years where you have the online and the physical working together, leveraging those assets to really be a seamless experience for customers.”
“I believe in e-commerce and stores—and I believe in everything in between, a hybrid way of interacting with the customer,” Roussel added. “The omni-channel customer”—someone who shops in-store, online, and through social media—“they spend four times as much with us than when they shop only in the store or only online. It shows that being able to offer multiple touch points to the customer has a huge value. It has a huge value to the customer, obviously, and it has a huge value to us.”
But how can a brand seamlessly communicate across digital and physical platforms without cannibalizing its own ideas, content, and customer base? The solution, the group agreed, is to offer something special and unique in each channel. A retail store can be a gathering place and a place for customer service, while online can build a digital community as well as foster seamless transactions.
Roussel gave an example of how some Tory Burch sales associates have been reaching out to clients from home, “just checking on them as friends.” That communication opened a new channel for sales that didn’t exist previously. He also pointed to data that 82% of Gen Z consumers would prefer to shop in-person instead of online. “We’re not looking at it by channel,” he said. “But looking at it from a consumer-centric perspective, that’s the way we’re approaching it.”
Because the purpose of physical stores will change, Roussel argued, “We will have to look at the performance of a store in a different way. It’s not going to be the traditional sales per square feet it’s going to be about the lifetime value to the customer, the relationship to the customer, and offering the customer every touch point and experience that is unique.
Retail Can be a Community-Builder and Emotional Outlet
“The [retail sites] I tend to get envious about [have] things on there that aren’t about selling anything,” admitted Nordstrom. “They’re about engaging people, inviting them in to be a part of that community. As a consumer, I find that compelling.”
The retailers agreed that transactional communication leaves customers feeling cold. “Brands that stand for something more than just what they sell as a product, that continually invest in creativity, that continue to build that relationship with their customer and being relevant, they will win,” said Roussel.
Radice advocated for an emotional aspect to retailing. “Show [emotion] in your product, in the way you set up your store, the way you talk to your customer, in the tools that you’re using—just show yourself,” he began. “We are trying to position ourselves as more of a place than a store: a safe place to be, a friendly place to be, a place that is always open for you. … That function of security and a safe place to be, as soon as we reopen, is going to be even more important.”
Bricks-and-Mortar’s Re-opening Will Be Slow
Exactly when physical stores might reopen, and under what conditions, will be different everywhere. “What we envision once we start opening stores is that we’ll take a learning approach, a really humble approach, of being responsible to customers,” said Nordstrom. “[We want to] allow that experience, what a store is, to evolve in a way that’s relevant.”
Radice, whose La Rinascente stores are often multi-level, spoke of staggering department hours, implementing rigorous cleaning schedules, and using masks within stores, as potentials for the near future. “Because they are very big stores, and they are developed over several floors, we are devising systems to allow people to have the social distancing that is required,” he continued. “It’s a new language for us that we will have to implement to face the situation.”
Nordstrom echoed that idea, adding, “We’re going to have to be flexible because it’s impossible to predict exactly what that new normal is going to be like.”
The Fashion System Needs to Change Too
There’s no question that the fashion calendar—presenting winter clothes in February that will arrive in July and go on sale by November—needs updating. “This is a problem that has been around for a long, long time,” said Radice, explaining that the current model was devised when the industry was much smaller.
While the retailers were hesitant to make concrete plans for how to “fix” the system, Roussel advocated for a “common sense” approach of trying to find solutions that work for the majority of the industry, pointing to buy-now-wear-now, in-season deliveries, and later markdown schedules as important ideas for the future.
“There’s a great opportunity for us to get a reset and act in the best interest of customers. I think Pierre-Yves is exactly right: There’s a common sense approach,” said Nordstrom. “If you started this business from scratch today, you would probably do it differently than some of these legacy practices and where they’ve brought us. That opportunity is upon us.”
If the fashion system were to produce smaller seasonal collections with in-season deliveries, “carry-over product will become even more important,” Roussel said. “I think brands that have strong, iconic product that are timeless are stronger and will be stronger in times of crisis. … It takes years to build up that kind of product—and you need to protect that.”
Radice echoed that, championing good design. “[Make] sure that each individual piece [you sell] is a piece you want to own,” he said. “Give real dignity to this piece, the way it’s designed, the way it’s produced, the way it’s sold.”
To view this week’s earlier panels on “The Future of Creativity” with Marc Jacobs, Kenneth Ize, and British Vogue’s Edward Enninful, click here, on “The Future of Sustainability” with Stella McCartney, Gabriela Hearst, and Vogue España’s Eugenia de la Torriente, click here, on “The Future of the Fashion Show” with Olivier Rousteing, Natacha Ramsay-Levi, Cédric Charbit, and Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps click here, and on The Future of E-Commerce with Virgil Abloh, Stephanie Phair, Remo Ruffini, and Vogue China’s Angelica Cheung click here.
Originally Appeared on Vogue