Drive-thru

What if stores and even shopping malls were places that you just pass through? Not even sit for a coffee like people do at Starbucks (p.8). No more window-shopping like people do at Aushopping. Places where you would just pass through to collect your order in dedicated car parks like people do at Walmart and Carrefour (p.1 & p.2). Whichever format is offered, be it click & collect, drive thru car parks or an open counter on a street, stores have now become just one touch point in the customer’s mobile multi-touchpoint journey. Stores are open to the outside, more than ever since the Covid-19 pandemic.

But how do you design stores that have been partly converted into places of passage rather than destinations? Where do you invest: in the layout, in the flow and stock control, in the management of teams dedicated to order preparation? How profitable is it when points of sale are deprived of additional sales and cross-selling during visits to a physical store? What kind of customer relationship should be established with ‘on-the-go’ consumers whose permanent contact medium is a smartphone? A whole new chapter is being written. Next steps will be fascinating!

Gautam Chowdhury
CEO of RXG India