I don’t need to tell you how tough this has been.

Retailers are in survival mode, focusing on their liquidity, helping to retain or furlough employees, and negotiating rents with landlords.

I get it, these are top priorities! We are all in this fight. The good news is that we are also starting to emerge from this nightmare, States and stores are beginning to re-open. It will be slow, but a new day will dawn.

At some point, I pray sooner than later, this will be deep in the rearview mirror, and life will return to normal. I believe retail will have its true renaissance! Customers will appreciate the retail experience more than ever after this, but it must be done exceptionally well. It requires a friction-less customer experience when you re-open your stores. And for that investment, retailers will be rewarded with revenue growth across store and e-commerce, higher margins, and customer loyalty.

This is the proverbial “Tipping Point” for retailers. Customers will not tolerate a poor in-store experience after relying on e-commerce like never before during the shutdown. The retailers who got caught flat-footed during this pandemic with technology that could not service their customers due to a lack of omnichannel capabilities are now moving these investments to the top of the stack.

One of them is Bed Bed and Beyond, so I wanted to share this article. I know your business is different, but every retailer needs to employ omni capabilities for their customers to drive revenue. Covid-19 has been a catalyst, a massive wake up call to what was already known in the “Amazon Age”. There can be no friction between the store and e-commerce.

https://risnews.com/bed-bath-beyond-ramps-omnichannel-investments-amid-coronavirus

This is about relevancy and survival, learning the lessons and pivoting quickly. It’s time to move out of fear and into a growth mindset.