What: Brian Solis from Salesforce shares his vision

Why is it important: In the future, the most successful retailers will marry technology with the customer experience, using new types of expertise.

Only if retailers stop thinking like retailers will they truly innovate. So says Brian Solis, a self-described “digital anthropologist and futurist” who joined Salesforce.com in March 2020 as its global innovation evangelist. The author of several books including X: The Experience When Business Meets Design (John Wiley & Sons, 2015), Solis recently shared his views on the future of shopping with McKinsey’s Cindy Van Horne. Here’s a summary of the interview.

The wow factor

The problem, when we imagine the future of retail, is that we tend to think about it as retailers. But there are other possibilities. For example, we could look at the most innovative amusement parks and translate that guest experience to the inside of a store or across other channels. Think about all the artistry and science that go into virtual reality, augmented reality, video games, or theme parks like Disney World. There’s a lot of “Imagineering,” as Disney calls it, that has to take place to marry technology with the customer’s experience in special ways that a company can then own and make a part of its brand.

By 2030, we’ll have sensors, computer vision, AI, augmented reality, immersive and spatial computing. How can these worlds play together in a way that is almost fantasy-like? It takes experience architecture—a new type of discipline and expertise. I wouldn’t be shocked if the best retailers in 2030 are employing game designers or spatial-computing designers.

Physical stores

Retailers can no longer just build fixed structures and rely on a business model based on, “How much can we squeeze out of this design before we need a remodel?” The business model should be about being agile, evolving, staying culturally relevant. It’s about reimagining space and flow.

Technology shouldn’t feel intrusive and suffocating. Technically, a retailer could know my name and my past transactions when I walk into a store and offer me new products and services. As technologies exist, the question becomes, “How do we use them?” It’s about creating magic. Great retailers, in the future, will make you feel like you’re in a special place, designed especially for you, so that you take time out of your life to go to that place because it’s aspirational.

Design and tech talents

Solis did some work with Westfield, the shopping-mall developer when it was launching an innovation centre and a lab in San Francisco. The company wanted to not just imagine the future of retail but also set the stage for the type of talent it wanted to attract. So it opened a collaboration hub and invited entrepreneurs to work there, which created energy and a sense of belonging. That’s one way to start thinking about the talent question.

In the 2000s and 2010s, Domino’s Pizza realized that it had to be a technology company first. How does a pizza company attract top software talent? By attaching innovation to the brand.

Retailers as experience designers Brian Solis on shopping in 2030