You’ve heard and seen it time and again — main street retail apocalypse is here.  More people are shopping online than ever and thus, mainstream retailers are left counting their losses as foot traffic dwindles.

In 2016 alone in the UK, BHS and Austin Reed have been in the headlines for weeks following their slide into administration. There are fears that many more will follow as the online stores that have expedited the demise of these big names are now going a step further to open physical stores. Having shop and retail insurance may not be enough to counter the impending doom when it hits. The big question today is how can Main Street retailers counter the main stream retail apocalypse?

Embrace the instant gratification trend

Part of the reasons why online shops have been as popular as they have been in the last decade is the fact they have perfectly keyed into the instant gratification trend of today.  The average customer wants to spend as little time as possible shopping and they want to spend even less time waiting for the items to arrive. Online stores are setting up physical locations with faster deliveries as one of the main targets. Main street retailers should therefore focus on increasing competitiveness on this front by putting mechanisms in place that will at least offer same day deliveries which is one of the strong points of online stores. It shouldn’t end here though; super-fast deliveries of one-hour or less should equally be explored.

Embrace the unified online and offline shopping experience trend

As mentioned earlier, more people will rather buy items online than go to physical store in today’s retail landscape. It is detrimental therefore for main street retailers to keep ignoring the online sphere. Setting up an online store front coupled with the degree of trust that has been garnered over years of offline operations could be all that main street retailers need to fend off the attack of online stores.

Embrace a more millennial centric approach

As more millennials hit the web, the rift between the offline and online retail world will only continue to grow. They spend more time online and thus will only know about service providers that are readily in their line of sight. Main street retailers, even after setting up an online store front cannot afford to neglect this group. Attracting them means more social media presence, online based competitions and targeted online ads.

The key to fending off online stores for main street retailers therefore is to embrace the things that have made online stores successful and get better at them.

By Kar

Dr. Kar works in the interface of digital transformation and data science. Professionally a professor in one of the top B-Schools of Asia and an alumni of XLRI, he has extensive experience in teaching, training, consultancy and research in reputed institutes. He is a regular contributor of Business Fundas and a frequent author in research platforms. He is widely cited as a researcher. Note: The articles authored in this blog are his personal views and does not reflect that of his affiliations.