Why Shoppers Still Value Brick and Mortar Retail [Infographic]

Just in time for London Fashion Week, luxury brand Burberry opened its new flagship store on London’s famous Regent Street. The store, dubbed “Burberry World Live” is the result of two years of renovation and aims to create a tailored shopping experience for shoppers by combining the digital with the physical.

Customer service features include sales associates armed with iPads, which are used to log customer preferences and purchase history, and clothing that is tagged with radio-frequency identification technology (RFID) chips that allow customers to view multimedia content such as video clips of catwalk looks.

According to a new infographic published by local shopping search engine Milo, shoppers expect this kind of cross-channel experience to be the future of retail.

While “Burberry World Live” currently stands apart from the brick-and-mortar crowd, 60 percent of shoppers will expect multiple retail channels, including web, social, mobile and physical, to be the norm for most stores by 2014.

This points to a shift in customers wanting retailers to reach them in different ways through different mediums. Customers also seek a more personalized experience.

According to survey data, 61 percent of respondents said they would welcome the idea of online stores keeping track of their browsing and purchasing histories to speed up future shopping.

Check out Milo’s infographic on the future of retail below.