In-Store Experience Still Proves Valuable to Mobile Payments-Heavy Shoppers

It would be easy to look at the retail landscape these days, portions of which still have “going out of business sale” signs plastered in the front windows, and believe that all retail these days is going to be a strictly online proposition. However, a new report issued from Klarna suggests that retailers may not need to close their doors and go online after all, as both Gen Z and even millennial shoppers still put some value on the in-store experience.

The Klarna report noted that 46 percent of both millennial and Generation Z consumers will actually spend more on “fashion” if they can try on the clothes in question before they buy. What’s more, the study found that 29 percent actually prefer to use online venues as showrooms—browsing for the item in question online—and then going to a store to make the purchase.

The report isn’t all good news and sunshine for retailers, though, as it revealed that 53 percent were prepared to abandon a retailer that had a “slow and expensive” return policy. Meanwhile, 66 percent of shoppers preferred a “free and easy” return policy, so those who fail to learn on this point are likely to lose customers. Indeed, 36 percent of shoppers will abandon online purchases if the retailer doesn’t have a good return policy, and 31 percent will do likewise over a checkout process that takes too long.

Just to round it out, about one shopper in three wanted to be able to pay in four equal installments, a point we’ve seen from some third-party services that allow such payments, like Splitit.

Essentially, the Klarna study shows us that the brick-and-mortar store isn’t out of the fight yet, but it’s going to have to make some changes to survive going forward. It’s going to have to innovate, to improve its currently-existing policies and bring in some utterly new options to get anywhere going forward, and it’s going to have to do so in pretty short order lest it lose out to the array of competitors who have already been making advances.

The good news is there’s still room for physical retail in young shoppers’ philosophies. The bad news is that goodwill may not last much longer without some serious changes taking shape.