LOS ANGELES – The Industrious, a global interactive agency reinventing how brands connect with their audiences, has published a new white paper examining shopper insights and key solutions to unprecedented challenges faced by retailers in a customer engagement landscape transformed by the current pandemic.  Retail Reconsidered:  Bridging Social Distance with Digital Technologies analyzes how retailers can adopt and incorporate advanced digitally distanced technologies into the everyday shopping experience to help businesses and brands thrive in this new normal.

“Traditional physical retail, already in the midst of significant change pre-COVID 19, is facing yet another existential threat.  As cities and regions around the world start to reopen, it is critical for retailers to understand and adapt to how customer behaviors will change — both temporarily and permanently,” said Andy Austin, president of The Industrious.  “We believe technology has the incredible power to  shrink this physical space that must now exist between us, and that retailers can create a new, slimmer and more experiential retail environment that will be essential to rapidly and smoothly transition to success under this new normal.”

The Industrious’ white paper draws on the over 40 years of its leadership team’s combined brand and retail experience to examine new and innovative ways to marry personal computing devices, gesture recognition technology, merchandising creativity and inventory management to create an inviting, engaging and safe space for thriving retail commerce.  The paper can help retailers rethink their blueprint for customer engagement and retail operations, focusing on core topics including:

• Conditions in which consumers will feel safe returning to retail
• Consumer requirements to interface in a seller-assisted, high-touch environment
• Ways in which retailers can lure sales using other senses than previously used in the pre-pandemic store landscape
• The impact of personal computing devices on creating a desirable retail experience
• New principles and values retailers must adopt and demonstrate
• Quick and low-cost adaptations retailers can employ immediately

Retail Reconsidered:  Bridging Social Distance with Digital Technologies can be downloaded for free here.