Adult salmon like to swim against the current, flinging themselves upstream in wild fits of approval. Other fish swim with the current, moving with the flow. So what is Amazon doing with a brick and mortar premises, are they now like Salmon?
You could argue that Amazon has never gone with the flow, in fact, you would argue that Amazon has never gone with the flow. Always changing the rules and shifting consumer perception of what it means to buy & sell. Which makes it more puzzling or perhaps more interesting where traditional businesses of brick and mortar seem to be moving away from the real world and into the online space, whilst Amazon moves against this trend.
Amazon Book’s recent move to venture from the virtual world to the real world has a lot of people talking, specifically taking into consideration the perceived requirement for traditional retail businesses to move away from brick and mortar. Not to mention the number of book retailers that have gone out of business in the recent decade.
So what is Amazon doing and what can the Real Estate & Property industries learn from this move.
Well firstly, Amazon is betting on a change in consumer shopping habits. They are calling it the “next generation retail”, which is a mash-up of e-commerce mastery and that of traditional retail.
Amazon knows consumers and has the data to know yourself better than you do, they call it “smart data”. Every consumer and I mean every, to have visited an Amazon-backed e-commerce application is profiled and researched. This is data mining at its greatest. Employing clever predictive search algorithms, the consumer is continually profiled.
By Amazon launching its first brick and mortar store is really a test, a test to see if they really have the formula they think they do. The store in Seattle, WA is a throwback to its roots, a Bookstore. Considering Amazon has come a long way from book sales, where book sales now make up a fraction of its annual revenue, the store is definitely a concept.
The Real Estate industry has much to learn from Amazon in this instance. Just because all the fish are swimming with the current, does not mean this is the right track for Real Estate businesses. Take a look around and see where the Salmon are swimming.
The Real Estate business of tomorrow will not solely resemble brick and mortar, and it will not be solely online. The real estate office of tomorrow will possess a mashup of the online & traditional shop front. Where the business intimately knows its customer, tailoring products/services directly to the customer.
In essence, the online offering of tomorrows real estate office shall be data capture; gathering of information to properly meet the needs of the customer. It is safe to assume that the brick and mortar premises will be the comfortable, non-threatening shopfront where the prospective buyer/seller can take the discussion to the next level.
Read more:
- Forbes: The Next Generation of Retail
- Entrepreneur Magazine: The Future of Retail
- Next Generation Retail Summit: www.gdsinternational.com/events/ngretail/eu/
- Foyer Live: Millennial Shoppers Creating the Next Generation of Retail Stores
