Retailing 101: Back To The Future

January 2015 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Alan Lipson, global retail industry strategist, SAS

Retailers will always need to know their customers, understand their wants, needs and desires, and engage with them in a personal, satisfying relationship.

Can you believe it’s been 30 years since Marty McFly time-traveled in a souped-up silver DeLorean in the movie Back To The Future? What if retailers could use Marty’s DeLorean to travel back to 1879 when James Ritty used the first cash register or 1946 when John Biggins introduced his “charge-it” card, or even 8:01 a.m. on June 26, 1974 at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, OH, when the first bar code was scanned? If we could go to the future, we might see how stores are using technology to become almost sentient, how 3D printing can affect the supply chain, or how holograms can improve the consumer experience. Whether we’re looking backward or forward, I think we’d discover that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

What hasn’t changed in the last century and won’t change in the future is the “what” of retail.