Endear's Modern Retail Blog covers articles from luxury clienteling to advanced tips & tricks to stay on top of your retail business.

A growing collection of case studies of how our customers have effectively used Endear to innovate and invigorate their retail sales.

Hear it straight from the industry experts! Endear founders share their expertise in the retail industry to inspire business owners to do more for their brands.

We highlight the functionality of some of Endear app's key features to arm your team with the know-how to make them work for you.

Need fresh ideas for customer service training & building brand loyalty among customers? Read our articles for best practices for your retail strategy.

<p>It’s a brave new <strong>retail</strong> world today. If you’re a retailer and not excited, you should ask yourself why. <br></p><p>There has never been a clearer opportunity for breaking new ground and taking on new and exciting projects as consumer habits force us all to upend everything we thought we knew. <br></p><p>As the title of this post suggests, any new retail trends worthy of attention will have an online and offline component — in fact, even thinking of these two channels separately will immediately slow you down (hence why we’ve written about the <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/omnichannel-retail" target="_blank">importance of omnichannel retail</a>). <br></p><p>We’ve already seen traditional retailers launch online while digitally native brands take to the streets with brick and mortar stores, but it’s no longer enough to simply exist both in-store and online — the next step is to ask how you can make your omnichannel presence do more for you and for your customers. The rest of 2020 presents a compelling opportunity to try new ideas and test the boundaries of what it means to offer customers a seamless shopping experience. <br></p><p>As a software company that works with omnichannel brands, <a href="https://endearhq.com/">Endear</a> has had a front row seat to what our customers are trying. Given what we’ve learned from them, we’ve put together a recap of the trends we believe all retailers should be paying close attention to, if not already finding ways to act on. </p><h2>Top Retail Industry Trends to Bookmark for Your Business</h2><p>Broken down by the actual purchase journey of a customer, we hope this list can spark inspiration for what should come next for your brand. </p><h3>Retail Industry Trends around New Ways to Discover</h3><p>Nothing has been more impactful on brand discoverability in the past decade than social media. Whether you start a Facebook group of fans or have thousands of followers on Instagram, these public profiles create great opportunities for new customers to find you and enter into your ecosystem. <br></p><p>However, the last year or so has shown a path of even more organic, authentic means of discovery that supplement what has become a highly competitive social media landscape. One such example is a return to the traditional retail model, but in the form of more flexible, <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/modern-physical-retail-formats-how-to-choose-the-right-one" target="_blank">affordable formats</a> such as pop-ups or pop-ins. <br></p><p>In fact, one study suggests that a physical store presence can <a href="https://www.icsc.com/news-and-views/icsc-exchange/physical-stores-key-to-retail-success-study-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increase traffic to your website in that area by up to 37%</a>. Given how competitive the digital advertising landscape has become, finding new ways to get exposure is certainly key. Another strategy that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere is the brand <a href="https://www.modernretail.co/startups/to-stave-off-growth-woes-dtc-brands-partner-with-others-to-create-marketplaces/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collaboration</a> — teaming up with a complementary brand or service to create a shared community of customers that you both target. <br></p><p>By working together with other brands to create unique opportunities for discoverability, you can end up saving a lot of time and money that often comes with  building a new channel from scratch.</p><h3>Retail Industry Trends around New Ways to Browse</h3><p>I recently had my own experience with online browsing, and it didn't take place on an e-commerce site. A friendly associate at a local store texted me a series of product images, and even offered to have the items I liked sent to my home for a private shopping session. <br></p><p>These are exciting times! Between Instagram's shopping and saving capabilities, iMessage's quick reactions, and all of our new-found love and obsession with text message, it should come as no surprise that customers are browsing your products in places you would not even imagine. <br></p><p>Online streaming platforms such as <a href="http://www.shopshops.com.cn/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ShopShops</a> also empower customers to browse digitally, with the support of an online host on the scene to show them what's in-store. What our customers have pointed out as a game-changer for them has been how easy Endear makes it to share these kinds of product images with more customers without sacrificing personalization. <br></p><p>What used to be a tedious task of taking multiple images of products and sending them one by one has become not only easy but also a more efficient, visually-pleasing experience thanks to Endear's lookbook capabilities — particularly handy for formally <a href="https://endearhq.com/personal-styling-programs" target="_blank">styling customers</a>.  </p><h3>Retail Industry Trends around New Ways to Engage</h3><p>As we all learn to depend on digital resources to get sh*t done, we’ve grown more comfortable with new communication channels and methods of staying connected. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/30/video-conferencing-apps-saw-a-record-62m-downloads-during-one-week-in-march/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Video conferencing app downloads have surged</a>, and customers are readily engaging with LiveChat apps in order to learn more about the products they can no longer touch and feel in-person. <br></p><p>While each of these various communication channels contributes to a more immersive customer experience, the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the more you can unify the conversation a customer has with your brand across these channels, the more likely your strategy is to generate <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/customer-loyalty" target="_blank">customer loyalty</a> in the long run. At Endear, we’ve found that one way to unify the retail experience is by ensuring that the <a href="https://endearhq.com/messaging" target="_blank">customer is always talking to the same person</a> no matter what channel she’s using. <br></p><p>In fact, customers’ main gripe with live chat solutions is that they can often feel impersonal, sometimes forcing customers to either repeat their questions or never delivering solutions at all. But customers should be able to communicate with your brand across any channel and feel like it is one fluid conversation. By equipping your entire team with the right communication tools, customers will have a better time shopping with you.</p><h3>Retail Industry Trends around New Ways to Sell</h3><p>Speaking of salespeople — ever wonder why the conversion in-store is about <a href="https://internetretailing.net/industry/industry/retailers-must-do-more-to-increase-personalisation-and-replicate-the-high-conversion-rate-of-in-store-interactions-study-recommends-19651" target="_blank" rel="noopener">7 to 10x</a> what it is online? When customers walk into a store, they have the opportunity to engage with an expert in real-time in order to get their questions answered and learn more about the products they see. <br></p><p>A big challenge for most e-commerce shoppers is that they often do not have someone knowledgeable about your product to count on for information. However, as more customers move online, brands are starting to understand that having a team of omnichannel associates is a necessary upgrade from the traditional retail sales strategy. Having a team that can educate customers face-to-face and remotely may be the thing to motivate customers to visit more frequently and, more importantly, convert. <br></p><p><a href="https://www.gucci.com/us/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gucci</a> is a prime example of the digitization of the associate — in June of this year, <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/technology/gucci-live-personalised-video-shopping" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the luxury brand launched Gucci Live</a> and dedicated a full team of salespeople to support digital-only shopping and clienteling for its customers. Another is <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/rhone-endear-virtual-concierge">Rhone</a>, which relied on Endear and our <a href="https://endearhq.com/lookbooks" target="_blank">lookbooks</a> to easily showcase new products to customers who weren’t able to come to the store. <br></p><p>Through virtual appointments, customers could see new merchandise and have a selection of items sent to them over email or text in order to decide which items from their appointment to purchase. While most digital brands today will have support teams to aid with shipping issues or returns, still few have made moves on a proactive sales team to replicate what stores offer, creating a prime opportunity for brands to stand out from their competition through <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/examples-of-delightful-customer-service-in-retail" target="_blank">top-notch service</a>. </p><h3>Retail Industry Trends around New Ways to Buy</h3><p>Only in the past few years, when I’d check out on an e-commerce site, I had two options: PayPal or adding my credit card details. Sometimes I forgot my PayPal password, sometimes my credit card was nowhere near me, and just like that, another abandoned cart. Most e-commerce brands will know their abandoned cart rate like their own phone number; <a href="https://www.barilliance.com/cart-abandonment-rate-statistics/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in the US, it’s a little above 70%</a> — meaning only about 1 in every 4 people ends up buying something they added to their cart. <br></p><p>But there has lately been a surge in payment options that reduces the friction of checkout, including new portals such as <a href="https://www.shopify.com/blog/shop-pay-checkout" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shopify’s ShopPay,</a> and <a href="https://pay.amazon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon Pay</a>. Perhaps more important than these though, has been the rise of the “buy now pay later” platforms — apps that allow you to pay a small amount up front and pay for the remainder of your item’s price in future installments. Platforms like <a href="https://www.afterpay.com/index" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AfterPay</a>, <a href="https://www.affirm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Affirm</a>, and <a href="https://www.klarna.com/us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Klarna</a> are popping up left and right so that shoppers are able to buy more expensive items today by paying for them over time. Boasting increases in conversion north of 20% for the merchants that use them, these platforms also are a big help to customers who don’t have credit cards (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/12/26/americans-near-record-levels-credit-card-debt-is-helping-bolster-banking-industry/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">about 45% of Americans don’t have one</a>), freeing up cash flow while still enabling them to acquire more expensive items the same way a credit card would. </p><h3>Retail Industry Trends around New Ways to Return</h3><p>While e-commerce makes it super easy to order pretty much anything, returns still prove to be hard on customers and on retailers — in fact, apparel retailers face a <a href="https://www.shipbob.com/blog/ecommerce-returns/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">43% return rate</a>! Putting aside the decision to return an item in the first place (which may come with its own disappointments), the next question is how easy is it for the customer to return an item, and how much will it cost the retailer. For most retailers, those two things are inversely related so that reducing return costs also means potentially dismaying customers. <br></p><p>However, returns prove to be another opportunity for omnichannel retailers to shine. By having both an in-store and online presence, you’re in a position to enable your customers to return however they like. Enabling them to return in-store if possible also reduces costs to you by eliminating the need to cover shipping and enabling your retail store to keep returned items on-hand as local inventory. This option may also prove easier for the customer, who no longer has to deal with re-packaging her item but instead can simply drop it off with a receipt. If you are not an omnichannel retailer however, there are still options available that may help lower your costs and also make life easier for your customers. <br></p><p>For example, <a href="https://loopreturns.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Loop Returns</a> encourages customers to consider exchanges and store credit instead of a standard refund, which can dramatically reduce your losses from returns. There are plenty of reverse logistics platforms that provide customers with a positive experience returning items, so be careful not to sleep on the post-purchase part of your customer’s journey. <br></p><p>All these trends have already started to take form, but there is still plenty of time to join in on the fun and find a way to make them work for your business and your customers. At <a href="https://endearhq.com/" target="_blank">Endear</a>, we focus on helping our customers come up with creative omnichannel solutions to ensure that they are always one step ahead.</p><p><br></p>

Discover the retail trends the Endear founders believe are here to stay — and how you can implement them.

Top Retail Industry Trends: What's in Store (and Online) for 2020

<p>The future of retail may seem harder to predict than ever, primarily due to how <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/the-future-of-work-in-retail" target="_blank">the coronavirus upended most of what we understood about the retail landscape</a>. While retailers will certainly think about their businesses differently in the short-term, it’s also important that retailers think beyond the next few months to determine what new technology, products, and services they want to offer as part of their physical and online <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/shopping-experience" target="_blank">shopping experiences</a>. As consumer behaviors shift, retailers and brands alike will have to adjust as well. <br></p><p>At Endear, it’s our job as a retail technology company to always be thinking about what the future of retail holds and how we play a part in that evolution. Technology and the future of retail are of course dependent on one another: trends inform what technology the retail industry needs, while technology helps the retail industry address those trends more quickly. <br></p><p>Given all the uncertainty surrounding us today, it seemed like a good idea to share our take on what’s to come. Below is a run-down of the trends and opportunities we believe the industry will have to embrace in order to succeed based on the consumer trends that have emerged. <br></p><h2>1. Sales will become omnichannel.</h2><p>The biggest missed opportunity in retail to-date has been in the sales department. While store associates have previously been confined to selling solely face-to-face, COVID-19 has taught anyone with a brick-and-mortar retail business that their salespeople are potentially even more powerful online.<br></p><p>There are a few critical reasons why salespeople should serve as online resources as much as they serve as in-store support. Perhaps the biggest reason is the return rate problem: <a href="https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/ecommerce-returns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">e-commerce stores face an average 20% return rate (30% during the holiday season), nearly doubling the return rate at retail stores.</a> Factoring in that customers expect brands to foot the bill for shipping returns, plus the cost of inventory that can’t be resold, <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/consumers/returns-rising-costs-retail-environmental" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the retail industry spends about a third of its revenue on reverse logistics.</a></p><p>When you think about how salespeople could dramatically decrease the likelihood of returns, it should be a no-brainer to brands to introduce their sales team to online customers. At Endear, we’ve already seen a number of our customers, such as <a href="https://www.mansurgavriel.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mansur Gavriel</a>, <a href="https://schutz-shoes.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Schutz</a>, and <a href="https://mishanonoo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Misha Nonoo</a>, use the past few months as a time to leverage their store teams to drive online sales—<a href="https://endearhq.com/omnichannel-tracking" target="_blank">with all this activity completely trackable (and commissionable!) through Endear.</a></p><h2>2. Customers will prioritize convenience.</h2><p>While customer expectations include free shipping and free returns, it doesn’t mean they won’t invest in speed <em>and</em> convenience. In other words, just because you offer free 7-10 day shipping doesn’t mean you can’t charge a premium for one-day or even same-day delivery.<br></p><p>Same-day delivery is coming at us quickly, primarily thanks to the infrastructure provided by food delivery and ridesharing apps. In fact, companies like <a href="https://www.shipsi.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shipsi</a> are making it even easier for brands and retailers to offer shoppers their goods within a matter of hours. Similarly, customers are more likely to offer information and data about themselves if it means receiving more tailored goods and personalized services in return. <br></p><p>Especially if you’re a retailer with tons of products to offer, you can no longer expect customers to scroll through pages and pages of results—<a href="https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/improve-customer-experience-with-artificial-intelligence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">they would rather you analyze their purchase or browsing history and serve up results that are most likely to appeal to them</a>. Otherwise, you’ll likely lose them to a product they find on social media. </p><h2>3. Customers will save through sustainability.</h2><p>Customers may be interested in spending time and money on convenience, but they’ve found ways to save through more sustainable shopping options, a necessary balance seeing as <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/consumer-business/us-retail-industry-outlook-2020-final-100720.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">growth in disposable income has dropped in the last year</a>. For example, more customers are forgoing purchasing new items and instead participating in the “re-commerce” and rental world. <br></p><p>In fact, while spend on apparel overall has stalled, the “re-commerce” (the re-selling of previously-owned goods) <a href="https://www.retaildive.com/news/5-predictions-for-the-future-of-retail/570085/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">market value is expected to approximately double to $51B by 2023</a>. Re-commerce is attractive to the next wave of shoppers not just because it saves them money, but because it also extends products’ shelf life, a major priority for Gen Z shoppers in particular, <a href="https://www.cgsinc.com/en/infographics/CGS-Survey-Reveals-Sustainability-Is-Driving-Demand-and-Customer-Loyalty" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whose loyalty is more likely to be influenced by a brand’s sustainability efforts than other generations</a>’. <br></p><p>While the re-commerce industry has been popularized by resale brands like <a href="http://rebag.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rebag</a> and <a href="https://www.therealreal.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Real Real</a>, even traditional brands like <a href="https://www.rag-bone.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rag & Bone</a> are starting to offer <a href="https://www.rag-bone.com/denim-recycling.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discount programs to help ensure that products are properly re-used or recycled</a>. Similarly, while rental pioneers like <a href="https://www.renttherunway.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rent the Runway</a> have encouraged our education around the power and benefits of renting apparel, services like <a href="https://www.caastle.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CaaStle</a> have enabled other brands to offer rental options, thus also lowering the barriers to entry into the luxury market for potential customers.<br></p><p>Another major consideration for eco-conscious shoppers is in the form of fulfillment. For many, BOPIS and BORIS (buy-online-pickup-in-store / return-in-store, respectively) offer both a more efficient, cost-saving, and eco-friendly method of retrieving and returning items, by avoiding unnecessary shipping, packaging, and warehouse processing. While not all brands have brick-and-mortar stores, companies like <a href="https://www.happyreturns.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Happy Returns</a> make it easy for pure-play companies to enable this method of returns for their customers because of how the tech platform teams up with larger retailers.  </p><h2>4. Retail technology will become more accessible.</h2><p><a href="https://endearhq.com/shopify" target="_blank">Endear prides itself on its easy-to-install</a>, easy-to-learn platform. But the reason why we’ve been able to make getting started so quick and affordable for customers is that the core infrastructure that brands are building on, predominantly their e-commerce platforms, have also become more consolidated and more nimble. <br></p><p>While there are very robust solutions out there, once Shopify entered the scene and brought its app store with it, the company challenged every other player to make it as easy to start using a new app for your business as it is in your personal life. While there are tons of great apps that have benefited from Shopify’s ecosystem, there are tons more who have taken a page out of the world of digital marketing and made it a priority to offer plug-and-play solutions to retail businesses, once plagued with large up-front development costs and long-term licensing contracts. When we think about other companies like <a href="https://www.getdor.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dor</a> or <a href="https://fiddle.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fiddle</a>, we see that we weren’t the only ones who knew that the SaaS model would catch up with retail eventually. </p><h2>5. Subscriptions will thrive (though subscription boxes may fall).</h2><p>Even before Covid, there has been a ton of chatter about the potential value of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands—there have been big wins and flame-outs, and the question is still up in the air about what kind of exit these brands can expect to have. One major differentiating opportunity, though, is subscription. Similar to my comment above, most tech companies count on subscription models and their ability to scale their software across customers to justify their need for up-front capital and the potential return on the other side.<br></p><p>While even I’ll admit that subscription boxes feel <em>sooo </em>2015, subscriptions may be the saving grace for a lot of brands. In fact, companies like <a href="https://www.fabletics.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fabletics</a> and <a href="https://www.savagex.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Savage x Fenty</a> bank on this model because it yields a much higher retention rate, which helps them overcome perhaps the biggest challenge facing retailers: constantly having to win back customers. <br></p><p>While subscription services may not apply to every category (e.g. mattress companies), basics brands and beauty brands alike have started introducing subscriptions as a way to keep customers happy and keep retention rates high. Subscriptions can also vary on the frequency, so that customers never feel trapped but instead feel comforted knowing that a product will reappear right when the original runs out or wears out. The more you can help customers feel this way, the better. For any company considering subscription, I would recommend investing in how you can demonstrate to customers the potential monetary advantages and their pre-existing behavior to encourage them to switch to a regular purchasing schedule—a discount on their subscription is encouraged! </p><h2>6. Barriers to physical retail will continue to lower.</h2><p>Today, opening a store is almost as easy as launching an e-commerce site. While some of this shift is due changes in the real estate market, a lot of it is because of the rise of retail-as-a-service companies and consultancies who offer turn-key solutions to brick-and-mortar operations. <br></p><p>These services, in tandem with new retail technology solutions like <a href="https://endearhq.com/" target="_blank">Endear</a>, make the prospect of physical retail much less daunting and much less expensive. It also means that physical stores can see returns faster since the playbook has been written. </p><h2>7. Brands will pervade our lives, not just our closets.</h2><p>When we think of our own company, we know we offer a product, but we also hope that we can offer our customers a sense of community, a reliable library of resources, and overall be generally helpful to them in all things sales-related. Brands today, especially during and because of COVID-19, are taking a similar approach to how they operate. <br></p><p>It’s not just about how good their products are —in fact, depending on your sales strategy, customers could just as easily find that same item at another retailer, maybe even for less money. So how will brands shift to encourage more customer loyalty?<br></p><p>One trend that is becoming more popular is to create more opportunities to engage with both the brand and the other people who are as obsessed with it as you are. <a href="https://endearhq.com/blog/customer-retention-strategies" target="_blank">I wrote about this type of community building in a previous post,</a> but when we think about what it will look like in the future, what we see today will be taken to another level. As brands become more customer centric, it will be less about “What do we make?” and more about “What do our customers want from us?” <br></p><p>And what customers want may be more than products—it may be in the form of events, services, or new types of content. All these things combined will still have to be “true to the brand” but a brand will no longer be a label you see on the inside or bottom of an item, it will truly be its own entity that customers will engage with through any channels it puts before them—likely, the more ways to engage, the more loyalty there is to be earned. <br></p><h2>Technology and the Future of Retail</h2><p>I’ve shared a lot of trends, ideas, and hypotheses here, but I’ve also included some of the technology we think will drive these changes forward. To make your life easier, I’ve recapped those solutions here. I hope it’s helpful! <br></p><p><a href="https://endearhq.com">Endear</a>: Whether you operate entirely online or have a large fleet of stores, Endear is here to help you keep your customers and sales team happy. See for yourself with a 30-day free trial of Endear.<br></p><p><a href="http://shipsi.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shipsi</a></p><p><a href="https://www.caastle.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CaaStle</a></p><p><a href="http://getdor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dor</a></p><p><a href="http://happyreturns.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Happy Returns</a></p><p><a href="https://fiddle.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fiddle</a></p><p><br></p>

Learn what trends the founders of retail CRM platform Endear predict will matter most for the industry.

Predictions for the Future of Retail

Predictions for the Future of Retail as Forecasted by the Founders of Endear

<p>It seems like we're getting closer to the day when we can safely roam free once more.  But with all this time not only working from home, but also exercising from home, shopping from home, and eating from home, a new normal will take hold, and every industry will have to reckon with how to adapt.</p><h2>Corona's Impact on Retail</h2><p>Different retail verticals are being impacted very differently by the crisis: while grocery stores are overwhelmed with traffic, <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/companies/fashion-industry-faces-up-to-covid-19-disaster-coronavirus" target="_blank" rel="noopener">high-end shops are pretty much catatonic</a>, with omnichannel brands have fared slightly better. But on some level, <a href="https://fashionista.com/2019/12/retail-market-store-closures-bankruptcies-2019-2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener">did Coronavirus just speed up the inevitable</a>? And <a href="https://www.modernretail.co/retailers/as-physical-retail-falters-retail-startups-fall-back-on-virtual-sales/?utm_campaign=mrdis&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mrdaily&utm_content=032520" target="_blank" rel="noopener">f</a><a href="https://www.modernretail.co/retailers/as-physical-retail-falters-retail-startups-fall-back-on-virtual-sales/?utm_campaign=mrdis&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mrdaily&utm_content=032520" target="_blank" rel="noopener">or those who have the means and the strategy to fight through the crisis</a>, what will retail look like post-Corona?</p><p>Before the crisis, the split between online and offline purchasing (let's ignore all the cross-over steps in between for now) was somewhere between 80-90% on the store side, and 10-20% on the e-commerce side. But with most of apparel retail still closed, customers who may have previously resisted shopping online have likely found their groove, and the gap will likely shrink even more rapidly than it was before (my 70-year-old father is the ultimate testament to this).</p><p>As a CRM platform for retail sales teams, <a href="https://endearhq.com" target="_blank">Endear</a> has had front row seat to retailers' thoughts and conversations around how to repurpose their store associates, once only available to the customers who could make it to the store. What was particularly exciting about these conversations is that the online world presents a whole new way to think about sales and what the role of an online sales associate should look like, <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/saint-laurent-fashion-show-canceled" target="_blank" rel="noopener">especially in the higher-end market</a>. While online traffic is inherently easier to track, those browsing online are getting less attention from sales teams. While Livechat has provided a temporary band-aid for customers' sales inquiries, what we at Endear always believed was missing from the e-commerce landscape was the capacity to proactively reach out to online shoppers, the digital equivalent of "is there something I can help you with?" or, "Would you like to try that on?" </p><h2>How Will Associates' Jobs Change?</h2><p>So the question on our minds (and hopefully on the minds of retailers) is how the role of the "omnichannel associate" will develop. Will retailers start offering WFH opportunities in conjunction with in-store positions?</p><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/26/nyregion/old-navy-workers.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The role of the associate was already starting to evolve</a> even before the crisis hit, and stores will still play a crucial role in any brand's growth and expansion - if we've learned anything from being cooped up inside, it's that we should never underestimate the value of human contact - But as my team and I know first-hand, the lines between a brand's retail associates, digital marketing team, and customer service reps are blurring more and more as we all navigate how best to engage and support consumers.</p><p>Most of us remember a world without e-commerce, and now we've experienced a world without brick-and-mortar. If there's a silver lining to what we're currently enduring, it's that brands should have more insight now than ever before around how consumers respond to these channels in isolation, and therefore should also now know how to create an even better shopping experience when putting them together.</p><p>‍</p>

Now that consumers have been forced to embrace e-commerce as their sole shopping channel, how will the role of the store associate adapt to this new behavior?

COVID's Impact on retail and what the role of online sales associates should look like post-COVID. Browse the rest of the blog for more industry updates.

How will Corona impact the future of work in retail?

<p>This past week, Jinesh and I had the privilege of attending Shopify Unite, the company's annual partner and developer conference - it was a blast. It was a blast to learn how much this ecosystem has accomplished together, and it was a blast to find out what's in store for Shopify and, in turn, all of the small businesses, solopreneurs, and large companies that take advantage of Shopify's never-ending pursuit of retail innovation.</p><p>Yes, I've clearly drank the Shopify cool-aid. I'm okay with that. But in the spirit of making this blog actually helpful and beneficial to the reader, I will try to cool it with the general praise and focus more on the major take-aways from attending the conference.</p><h2><strong>Why Does Shopify Host Unite?</strong></h2><p>Unite presents an opportunity for Shopify to educate its world-class network of partners and developers on what new features and improvements are coming down the pipeline so that this group of innovators can incorporate these enhancements into their various products and services for merchants. In other words, if Shopify is serving up the ball, it's up to the conference attendees to hit it out of the park.</p><p>But why do they do this? Why not host this conference for merchants instead?</p><p>Instead of trying to be a one-size-fits-all platform for all their merchants, Shopify focuses on making it easy and affordable for merchants of any size to create the right experience for their brand by tapping into a large network of developers and agencies. With this approach in mind, Shopify can use a conference like Unite to educate this ecosystem of partners who are then incentivized to improve their own services and market these new enhancements to their respective merchant customers - this strategy proves much easier than educating the 800,000 merchants that are currently using Shopify on what features are coming out.</p><h2>What We Learned</h2><p>Attending Shopify Unite meant hearing first-hand what Shopify has accomplished over the past year and where it’s headed. Below are some of the details I found most interesting:</p><ul><li>If you combine all the merchants on Shopify, Shopify represents the third largest retailer in the US, after Amazon and Ebay</li><li><a href="https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/shopify-tightens-its-grip-on-the-ecosystem-at-annual-developer-conference/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shopify’s new fulfillment centers</a> will enable all their merchants to compete with the likes of Amazon when it comes to faster, more reliable shipping for customers</li><li>Shopify POS now powers over 100k merchants globally</li><li>The company is introducing subscription options directly into its checkout, so that any merchant can turn a one-time purchase into a recurring opportunity for shoppers</li><li>With Shopify’s multi-location functionality, merchants will soon be able to offer customers BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store) so that shoppers can choose how they’d like to actually acquire their new items</li></ul><h2>What We Shared</h2><p>As a POS app, Endear was invited to speak on a panel to help educate the Shopify community on why we are invested in seeing physical retail succeed. We were thrilled to speak about working with brick-and-mortar stores alongside the founder of <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/marsello" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marsello</a>, Brent Spicer, and the founder of the Shopify app <a href="https://apps.shopify.com/clockedin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ClockedIn</a>, Rhian Beutler. Together, the three of us focused on the following:</p><ul><li>Stores lack a tremendous number of tools and resources compared to their digital counterparts</li><li>Endear and its POS friends believe that in order to continue to grow, most brands will need to evolve into true omnichannel players, offering their customers in-store and online experiences that work together harmoniously</li><li>Customers have already adopted the mindset that they should be able to start their purchase journey anywhere and end it anywhere – its now up to merchants to deliver on this expectation</li><li>Store management is still incredibly analog, and its up to apps like Endear to help retailers overcome these outdated habits and ways of operating so that they can improve their performance and continue to grow</li><li>As more apps, services, and agencies that cater to stores emerge and digital marketing becomes increasingly more expensive and competitive, stores will once again become efficient investments from both a sales and marketing standpoint, particularly when done in a modern, data-driven way that leverages everything brands have learned from managing their online businesses</li></ul><h2><strong>Endear hearts Toronto</strong></h2><p>While previous Shopify Unite’s were held in San Francisco, I was thrilled that the company decided to re-locate to its own HQ city of Toronto, so shout-out to Toronto for being an incredible host city – visiting right after the Raptors’ big win only made the city more alive, and yet not at all overwhelming. It’s truly a wonderful place to visit and I’m already looking forward to returning next year. Highly recommend making the trip!</p>

A recap of the 2019 Shopify Unite Conference from our co-founder, Leigh Sevin.

Endear co-founder Leigh Sevin shares key take-aways from the 2019 Shopify Unite Conference. Browse the rest of the Endear blog for more industry tips & updates.

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Learn about Endear as a company and our mission to re-invent the retail sales experience.

Read about how Endear is empowering retail associates to market their stores through customer outreach on our blog

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Our Trip to Shopify Unite

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