August 24, 2026
sergeypeterman/Depositphotos.com
Reconsidering the Role of the Retail Store: Are Shoppers Tired of ‘Feeling Predicted’?
According to the most recent report by JLL — titled “Resetting the Retail (Algo)Rhythm” — American shoppers are growing fatigued of excessive AI navigation and involvement in the shopping process, as well as an overload of screens, noise, and other sensory features. Where’s the middle ground as AI tools, digital marketing, and experiential demands butt up against a fatigued U.S. consumer?
The report’s author’s opened with bold text proclaiming that the role of brick-and-mortar retail is more vital than ever, before moving on to the broader premise:
“As customers tire of curated digital feeds and constant screen time, stores can offer something different: tactile discovery, sensory relief and human connection. While AI-powered curation makes infinite product ranges easier to navigate, customers are now pushing back against feeling predicted,” the authors began.”
“This gives retailers an opportunity to reconsider the role of the store. Digital channels are becoming better at delivering speed and convenience, while physical spaces can meet the needs that digital experiences do not fully address,” they added.
Among the top-line findings of the survey data:
- Discovery remains important: An overwhelming majority (83%) of those polled said they relish finding items at a physical retail store they wouldn’t have looked for online.
- Overload is happening across a broad spectrum: Nearly three-quarters (72%) of U.S. shoppers indicated they’d departed from a store before planning to “because it felt overwhelming.” That figure rises to 82% of those who self-identify as neurodivergent, and a similar cohort of all shoppers (71%) stated they’d shop more frequently at stores with a quieter, lower-stimulation atmosphere.
- Online recommendations may be feeling like impositions: Almost half (45%) of respondents suggested that online recommendations impart of feeling of “narrowing what they [consumers] are allowed to like.”
- Brick-and-mortar retail employees are signaling tech / clutter overload as well: Four-fifths of retail employees surveyed (80%) observed that shoppers appeared more calm in spaces with less clutter, and a majority (53%) want fewer screens at work. More than one-third (38%) indicated they feel pressure to employ technology in their workflow, “even when it slows them down.”
The study authors asked several broader questions obliquely critiquing certain aspects both of mass retail and experiential retail throughout the paper, including
“What if retailers created layouts that rewarded wandering, not efficiency?,” advocating for a balance of composition, complexity, sight/touch/taste, and localization to enhance a feeling of “serendipitous discovery” versus clutter, sameness, and overall feelings of anxiety, being boxed in, etc.
“What if retailers designed for how customers want to feel, not just what they want to buy?,” emphasizing a return to the fundamental appeals of attractive color / contrast, touch, sound, and scent as design principles that can work, as “The fixes customers want are not new features. They are the absence of noise, clutter and screens.”
and, “What if the most powerful content driver isn’t the influencer, but the store itself?,” taking on (and rejecting) the new-ish concept of retail spaces as shareable “social media backdrops.” Instead, it’s argued, deploy digital only when it is an enhancement rather than an encumbrance, and install tasteful amenities to inspire shoppers to linger, participate, and connect. Service is also a cornerstone in this category, with human interaction being central to the brand and the store experience, with the space itself being curated to guide customers through a comfortable, culturally relevant floor.
“The question is not whether stores remain important but how they can create distinctive value alongside increasingly sophisticated digital channels,” the authors noted, underscoring that e-comm retail accounted for just 16.9% of total sales in the first quarter of this year. The study highlighted Audible Storyhouse, Claire’s, Dick’s Collectors Clubhouse, and La La Land cafe’s as particular standouts in pushing forward this balanced new take on the shopper-first concept.
BrainTrust
Matt Huckeba
Mohamed Amer, PhD
Strategy Advisor, CEO & Co-Founder, BridgeCommAI
Romit Bhatia
Associate Partner, IBM
Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
Do you agree with JLL’s major arguments, and the study findings suggesting that shopper overload is widespread in physical retail? Which arguments are you most skeptical or supportive of?
How can retailers reward wandering without overly curtailing efficiency on store sales floors? Is ‘serendipitous discovery’ actually a vital element for today’s U.S. shopper?
Are retailers making a mistake by making so many retail touchpoints AI-driven or at least digitally driven? What are some alternatives that don’t increase friction too much?
Poll
Consumers have not rejected technology – including AI – but nor have they embraced it universally. And, when it comes to shopping, we’re seeing a split emerge. Technology is used and widely welcomed in digital experiences, mainly because it creates efficiency and ease. However, in physical experiences, shoppers are often looking for something more human. From our data – and the extensive work we’ve done for Pacsun on the topic – the sharpest divide comes from youth consumers. The most tech savvy generation is the one that craves a digital detox via serendipity and community the most.
Youth consumers wanting a real life (detox) and yet, “GenZ” is being targeted obsessively with every form of device/link/scan/open/save/share.
A disconnect to who the youth really are, as people.
Maybe the youth are realizing that another 55 years of non stop tech is depressing.
A biological age break is never a monolith… and never the best communications metric.
How much of the tech in retail is making the consumers HAPPY?
Yes, it can ‘solve problems, but does it make them happier people?
There is no one answer because every retailer and every shopping mission is different. Wandering isn’t helpful when a customer values efficiency. The moment a shopper enters a store, they are immersed in the retailer’s brand and shopping experience, from staffing and service to merchandising, product mix and checkout. Creating “experiences” without considering how they ultimately contribute to a sales transaction is naïve. In most cases, a sale should be the natural conclusion of a successful shopping experience. With the vast majority of retail sales still occurring in physical stores, retailers should obsess over making every element of that experience work better for the customer and ultimately, convert more visits into sales.
There’s a technology I wish larger retailers would deploy in the store: product locators. Mens’ Dockers may be on sale this week, but where are they?
What? You want retailers to help you find stuff? But then, your shopping trip might end when you them find it exactly where you were told they would be and that might obviate spontaneous or impulsive buys. Aha!
Ha. The old school dept store layout… no windows, just winding meandering paths… like a casino, meant to keep you in.
“There are different strokes for different folks.” Some consumers enjoy the treasure hunt, the surprise and delight, others enjoy the fastest experience possible with a satisfactory outcome (the AI-driven search for what I want. Now, show it to me!), and the leisurely shopper who browses and, maybe, buys something, but does not want to be pressured, pushed, or predicted. Retail can, and will satisfy all three groups. AI will not play a part in all of them.
Yep- I think you can use a directional AI approach, but to your point, people don’t want it thrown in their face. Retail can survive this.
Reconsidered by who? This “research” is painting the lily except with the “The fixes customers want are not new features. They are the absence of noise, clutter and screens.” Right people want an absence of noise and screens. Color me doubtful few shoppers would say that in an interview of why they don’t buy. It’s lack of human connection. That’s training. That’s hospitality. That’s holding associates accountable.
Are people tired of AI being dragged into everything? Indeed they are (hint, hint)
This study seems like (yet) another example of people nodding their heads when you ask them something: do people relish “finding things they wouldn’t have looked for”? Perhaps; but I offer that these same people hate having their time wasted in a forced effort at “discovery”. Far, far too few merchants are adept at game playing, and they really shouldn’t try: give people what they’ve told you they want, in the least obtrusive manner possible…it really shouldn’t be more complicated than that.
Retailers are overdoing AI when it starts replacing human judgment and making shopping feel scripted or stressful. The better path is to use technology behind the scenes—for inventory, fulfillment, and speed—while keeping the customer experience simple, calm, and human. Shoppers still want convenience, but they don’t want to feel managed by screens and algorithms at every step.
There is a fine line here and it just keeps moving. Customers want a simple and convenient shopping experience. They like human interaction without having to reference a screen or an app.
Retail has a recurring measurement problem. Survey findings often become store strategy before they are tied to sales.
JLL’s 72% finding is striking but incomplete. Did those shoppers leave before completing their mission? Did they abandon a basket or leave after making a purchase? Without that breakdown, the figure cannot show how much overload affected sales. The same issue applies to the 45% who felt online recommendations narrowed their choices. The feeling matters, although its effect on sales remains unproven.
The study gives retailers a reason to test calmer stores. It does not yet support a broad redesign. Retailers could reduce screens and visual clutter in selected locations, then compare results with similar stores. Conversion should be examined first. Basket value and return frequency would show whether the change has lasting value. Planned trips should also be separated from browsing visits.
Serendipity and customer-facing AI may both have a role. Observed behavior and store economics should determine where each belongs.
Not every shopper walks in looking for the same experience. Some want to browse and discover, others want to get in and out. The good news is that a lot of in-store technology is opt-in. Shoppers who want help can engage with it, and those who don’t can ignore it. That’s a flexibility that online retail doesn’t really have.
“What if retailers created layouts that rewarded wandering, not efficiency?”
“What if retailers designed for how customers want to feel, not just what they want to buy?”
And, “What if the most powerful content driver isn’t the influencer, but the store itself?”
I love these “what-ifs,” and frankly, it’s how I design stores for my clients.
The retail community is so tied up in technology and AI. It’s all we talk about and honestly, it’s exhausting.
I live in the suburbs of a major city, and I can tell you that much of the customer-facing technology we talk about so much simply isn’t happening here.
So, how about we stop talking about it quite so much and focus on what really matters: the customer experience on the sales floor. Tech and AI can enhance a great store experience, but it can’t replace one.
Brick and mortar stores have always been critical; have always been critical strategic advantages despite the hype of the digerati. What this story describes, though, is nothing new for consumers. Amazon, for example, has always been a horrifically bad place to shop and a superb place for consumers to buy a narrow range of things where they know exactly what they want (assuming waiting for delivery is acceptable).
AI curated digital feeds do not and cannot fix this. All internet remains valuable for buying but not for shopping – with only a few alternative examples..
Retailers, then, must once again reject the digital hype (even when powered by what is erroneously called “artificial intelligence”) and double down on their commitment to making their stores where customers want to shop. I only hope they do it far more quickly this time around and avoid the wasted decade spent believing online stores would create a key strategic advantage. Those stores are important and valuable. But they have never lived up to the hype because brick and mortar stores are more powerful.
Feeling predicted is the wrong diagnosis. Shoppers push back because prediction has served the seller’s margin more often than their own preferences. Recommendation engines optimize for what the retailer wants to move, then dress it up as personalization. Consumers sense the misalignment even when they cannot articulate it, and the 45% who feel their choices narrowing are reading the incentives correctly. The store’s structural advantage is that discovery there belongs to the shopper. She sets the pace, the path, and the criteria. Retailers who strip out screens without fixing whose interests the technology serves will get quieter stores and the same distrust. Realign the incentive first.
“served the seller’s margin more often than their own preferences.”
I write to retailers all the time when a function I need is missing (like a sort by “newest”), instead of the “our best sellers”. As a consumer (vs marketer) their inventory overstock is not my problem. [I assume “best seller” can be used as what they need to sell, just as much as a FOMO driver of hot seller]. I also call out their inventory push when it’s a category where you’d want individualism…to not to be served what everyone else ‘supposedly’ bought.
The report frames this as a choice between AI and humanity, but the real line is front of house versus back of house. Shoppers push back when the algorithm shows up in their face, where it feels like it is deciding what you see. I don’t think anyone is walking out of the store because the demand forecast was too accurate. The AI that keeps shelves stocked, pickup orders ready, and deliveries on time is what makes a store feel effortless, which is what shoppers are really looking for today, especially when there are so many other options.
As a whole. retailers are not overdoing AI (yet!). Some are deploying it in the wrong half of the store. Put the intelligence behind the wall and the humanity in front of it, and both camps get what they want.
Employees: “More than one-third (38%) indicated they feel pressure to employ technology in their workflow, “even when it slows them down.””
A disconnect to the use cases for the tech.
I agree that customer overload is real, but I am skeptical of the idea that the answer is more prediction. Many stores do not need to become smarter feeds. They need to become easier to shop.
The strongest part of JLL’s argument is that physical retail has become too noisy. Too many signs, choices, screens, promotions, and messages can make the store feel like work. That hurts discovery instead of helping it.
The weak spot is assuming personalization fixes the problem. Relevance matters, but only when it reduces friction. The best retailers will use data behind the scenes for assortment, inventory, staffing, and service, while keeping the store experience simple enough for customers to make decisions.
My first job out of college was at Cost Plus Imports — the iconic Fisherman’s Wharf store in San Francisco. It was the ultimate treasure-hunt experience for shoppers. People came to browse, explore, find things they didn’t know they needed. That worked for Cost Plus, the same way it works for a lot of non-essential retail.
But even at Cost Plus, some categories didn’t play by treasure-hunt rules. Bulk coffee, food, consumables — those items lived and died on reliability. Shoppers weren’t there to hunt for their coffee; they needed it in the same spot every time and it had to be in stock. Different product mission, different customer expectations of what the experience should be.
That’s my problem with a lot of the AI push in stores today. It’s a great tool for the reliability side of the business — inventory, findability, checkout friction. But when retailers apply the same logic to the discovery side, they’re optimizing for their own efficiency, not the shopper’s mission. Don’t force customers onto a platform because it’s better for you — lead them to the experience that fits what they came in for.
As a customer in physical retail I have experiences ranging from delightfully entertaining, to boring, to deeply frustrating. I avoid digital tools while in a physical store unless I’m at Home Depot and I need the aisle and bin mumber for the widget I am looking for. I did my digital homework at home. As a digital customer, I feel followed, nudged, harrassed, pestered, annoyed, chased, etc. There are times I don’t click on something because I don’t want to trigger the barrage of followup emails. “Hey! That shirt you looked at is going to sell out any minute!” Please. To me, it already feels like AI is being over-used, and we are just getting warmed up. Neil Saunders comment about “digital detox via serendipity and community” gets my thunderous applause.
What I share with all brick and mortar owners and or store managers is that everything is about what you want your consumer to feel. Humans feel internally and live externally so the experience provided needs to understand what that emotion is for what they are offering. It wont ever be and never has been 1 answer it is a balance. Consumers wanting basic things tend to want efficiency and ease in their experience. Those consumers tend to like tech supported things that make it more efficient. Consumers taking time to come in for things such as clothing at least in women’s clothing end to want more inspiration and support that is personal and the tech supported things within that experience can turn them away because if they wanted that they can go on-line. This does however require then an investment in well trained staff and payroll investment. Consumers have lots of choices today in how they shop and that can and has caused choice overwhelm for many so those who reflect on this now and evaluate that brick and mortar experience could see a positive change in their sales and return customers.
If the technology stores are using to enhance the a customer’s experience works, then keep doing it. Most of that is about personalization. The problem is when the technology misses. The customer may accept the first miss, but it won’t take long before they realize this isn’t a personalized experience. While the customer won’t describe it in these words, the best way to describe a personalized experience is a poorly executed marketing strategy.
Consumers love a good experience but that isn’t what drives long-term affinity to your business and environment. Connection is a level deeper. It’s what more and more customers are looking for from retailers and the physical stores they frequent. Experience gets you in the door once or twice. Connection keeps you coming back and most of the best ways to create connection are not done through technology or digitally as things sit today.
In recent years, experts predicted in-store retail media would explode. The tension between multisensory experiences that are stimulating vs. irritating to customers helps to explain why retailers are wary of digitizing and monetizing their physical stores.
There is a category error buried in the JLL data. Shoppers are not tired of technology, they are tired of the technology pointed at them rather than at the shelf. Having run retail execution across more than 50 countries, I would wager that a large share of that 72 percent who felt overwhelmed were standing in a store with competing POS material, cluttered signage and a planogram that had quietly drifted, not in a store with too many screens. It is worth naming the uncomfortable part: much of the visual noise in a supermarket is sold, not designed. I spent years on the consumer goods side buying that space, and trade budgets reward interruption, so the store gets louder every quarter by contract, not by accident. If a retailer genuinely wants calm, the lever is enforcing execution standards and repricing the clutter it sells, not removing screens. Point computer vision at the shelf instead of at the shopper, and the store starts to feel calm as a by product of simply being correct.
Shopper overload is real, and retailers often miss the boat because more of something often seems better. A recent concept I’ve heard summarizes this perfectly… Retailers organize traditionally around their business performance and categories. Consumers organize around their lives. And so this becomes a key opportunity gap which AI can help narrow if retail is willing to let customer centricity take center stage in strategy and decision making. The customer experience strategy should always come from their vantage point, not more of whatever.
It is all about balance. Technology (e.g., AI) has its place in retail. As does genuine human interaction. The key for meeting consumers at the right point in their interaction is to use technology as an enabler and insight tool, while relying on traditional customer service and one-on-one relationships to flourish.
The biggest risk to narrowing product discovery and search actually resides with the brands who are not among the top tier. Often described as “the tail,” CPG brands left out of digital discovery will simply disappear from view, relevance, and shopping baskets. To survive, product differentiation must prevail along with a huge dose of the balance described earlier.
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Consumers have not rejected technology – including AI – but nor have they embraced it universally. And, when it comes to shopping, we’re seeing a split emerge. Technology is used and widely welcomed in digital experiences, mainly because it creates efficiency and ease. However, in physical experiences, shoppers are often looking for something more human. From our data – and the extensive work we’ve done for Pacsun on the topic – the sharpest divide comes from youth consumers. The most tech savvy generation is the one that craves a digital detox via serendipity and community the most.
Youth consumers wanting a real life (detox) and yet, “GenZ” is being targeted obsessively with every form of device/link/scan/open/save/share.
A disconnect to who the youth really are, as people.
Maybe the youth are realizing that another 55 years of non stop tech is depressing.
A biological age break is never a monolith… and never the best communications metric.
How much of the tech in retail is making the consumers HAPPY?
Yes, it can ‘solve problems, but does it make them happier people?
There is no one answer because every retailer and every shopping mission is different. Wandering isn’t helpful when a customer values efficiency. The moment a shopper enters a store, they are immersed in the retailer’s brand and shopping experience, from staffing and service to merchandising, product mix and checkout. Creating “experiences” without considering how they ultimately contribute to a sales transaction is naïve. In most cases, a sale should be the natural conclusion of a successful shopping experience. With the vast majority of retail sales still occurring in physical stores, retailers should obsess over making every element of that experience work better for the customer and ultimately, convert more visits into sales.
There’s a technology I wish larger retailers would deploy in the store: product locators. Mens’ Dockers may be on sale this week, but where are they?
What? You want retailers to help you find stuff? But then, your shopping trip might end when you them find it exactly where you were told they would be and that might obviate spontaneous or impulsive buys. Aha!
Ha. The old school dept store layout… no windows, just winding meandering paths… like a casino, meant to keep you in.
“There are different strokes for different folks.” Some consumers enjoy the treasure hunt, the surprise and delight, others enjoy the fastest experience possible with a satisfactory outcome (the AI-driven search for what I want. Now, show it to me!), and the leisurely shopper who browses and, maybe, buys something, but does not want to be pressured, pushed, or predicted. Retail can, and will satisfy all three groups. AI will not play a part in all of them.
Yep- I think you can use a directional AI approach, but to your point, people don’t want it thrown in their face. Retail can survive this.
Reconsidered by who? This “research” is painting the lily except with the “The fixes customers want are not new features. They are the absence of noise, clutter and screens.” Right people want an absence of noise and screens. Color me doubtful few shoppers would say that in an interview of why they don’t buy. It’s lack of human connection. That’s training. That’s hospitality. That’s holding associates accountable.
Are people tired of AI being dragged into everything? Indeed they are (hint, hint)
This study seems like (yet) another example of people nodding their heads when you ask them something: do people relish “finding things they wouldn’t have looked for”? Perhaps; but I offer that these same people hate having their time wasted in a forced effort at “discovery”. Far, far too few merchants are adept at game playing, and they really shouldn’t try: give people what they’ve told you they want, in the least obtrusive manner possible…it really shouldn’t be more complicated than that.
Retailers are overdoing AI when it starts replacing human judgment and making shopping feel scripted or stressful. The better path is to use technology behind the scenes—for inventory, fulfillment, and speed—while keeping the customer experience simple, calm, and human. Shoppers still want convenience, but they don’t want to feel managed by screens and algorithms at every step.
There is a fine line here and it just keeps moving. Customers want a simple and convenient shopping experience. They like human interaction without having to reference a screen or an app.
Retail has a recurring measurement problem. Survey findings often become store strategy before they are tied to sales.
JLL’s 72% finding is striking but incomplete. Did those shoppers leave before completing their mission? Did they abandon a basket or leave after making a purchase? Without that breakdown, the figure cannot show how much overload affected sales. The same issue applies to the 45% who felt online recommendations narrowed their choices. The feeling matters, although its effect on sales remains unproven.
The study gives retailers a reason to test calmer stores. It does not yet support a broad redesign. Retailers could reduce screens and visual clutter in selected locations, then compare results with similar stores. Conversion should be examined first. Basket value and return frequency would show whether the change has lasting value. Planned trips should also be separated from browsing visits.
Serendipity and customer-facing AI may both have a role. Observed behavior and store economics should determine where each belongs.
Not every shopper walks in looking for the same experience. Some want to browse and discover, others want to get in and out. The good news is that a lot of in-store technology is opt-in. Shoppers who want help can engage with it, and those who don’t can ignore it. That’s a flexibility that online retail doesn’t really have.
“What if retailers created layouts that rewarded wandering, not efficiency?”
“What if retailers designed for how customers want to feel, not just what they want to buy?”
And, “What if the most powerful content driver isn’t the influencer, but the store itself?”
I love these “what-ifs,” and frankly, it’s how I design stores for my clients.
The retail community is so tied up in technology and AI. It’s all we talk about and honestly, it’s exhausting.
I live in the suburbs of a major city, and I can tell you that much of the customer-facing technology we talk about so much simply isn’t happening here.
So, how about we stop talking about it quite so much and focus on what really matters: the customer experience on the sales floor. Tech and AI can enhance a great store experience, but it can’t replace one.
Brick and mortar stores have always been critical; have always been critical strategic advantages despite the hype of the digerati. What this story describes, though, is nothing new for consumers. Amazon, for example, has always been a horrifically bad place to shop and a superb place for consumers to buy a narrow range of things where they know exactly what they want (assuming waiting for delivery is acceptable).
AI curated digital feeds do not and cannot fix this. All internet remains valuable for buying but not for shopping – with only a few alternative examples..
Retailers, then, must once again reject the digital hype (even when powered by what is erroneously called “artificial intelligence”) and double down on their commitment to making their stores where customers want to shop. I only hope they do it far more quickly this time around and avoid the wasted decade spent believing online stores would create a key strategic advantage. Those stores are important and valuable. But they have never lived up to the hype because brick and mortar stores are more powerful.
Feeling predicted is the wrong diagnosis. Shoppers push back because prediction has served the seller’s margin more often than their own preferences. Recommendation engines optimize for what the retailer wants to move, then dress it up as personalization. Consumers sense the misalignment even when they cannot articulate it, and the 45% who feel their choices narrowing are reading the incentives correctly. The store’s structural advantage is that discovery there belongs to the shopper. She sets the pace, the path, and the criteria. Retailers who strip out screens without fixing whose interests the technology serves will get quieter stores and the same distrust. Realign the incentive first.
“served the seller’s margin more often than their own preferences.”
I write to retailers all the time when a function I need is missing (like a sort by “newest”), instead of the “our best sellers”. As a consumer (vs marketer) their inventory overstock is not my problem. [I assume “best seller” can be used as what they need to sell, just as much as a FOMO driver of hot seller]. I also call out their inventory push when it’s a category where you’d want individualism…to not to be served what everyone else ‘supposedly’ bought.
The report frames this as a choice between AI and humanity, but the real line is front of house versus back of house. Shoppers push back when the algorithm shows up in their face, where it feels like it is deciding what you see. I don’t think anyone is walking out of the store because the demand forecast was too accurate. The AI that keeps shelves stocked, pickup orders ready, and deliveries on time is what makes a store feel effortless, which is what shoppers are really looking for today, especially when there are so many other options.
As a whole. retailers are not overdoing AI (yet!). Some are deploying it in the wrong half of the store. Put the intelligence behind the wall and the humanity in front of it, and both camps get what they want.
Employees: “More than one-third (38%) indicated they feel pressure to employ technology in their workflow, “even when it slows them down.””
A disconnect to the use cases for the tech.
I agree that customer overload is real, but I am skeptical of the idea that the answer is more prediction. Many stores do not need to become smarter feeds. They need to become easier to shop.
The strongest part of JLL’s argument is that physical retail has become too noisy. Too many signs, choices, screens, promotions, and messages can make the store feel like work. That hurts discovery instead of helping it.
The weak spot is assuming personalization fixes the problem. Relevance matters, but only when it reduces friction. The best retailers will use data behind the scenes for assortment, inventory, staffing, and service, while keeping the store experience simple enough for customers to make decisions.
My first job out of college was at Cost Plus Imports — the iconic Fisherman’s Wharf store in San Francisco. It was the ultimate treasure-hunt experience for shoppers. People came to browse, explore, find things they didn’t know they needed. That worked for Cost Plus, the same way it works for a lot of non-essential retail.
But even at Cost Plus, some categories didn’t play by treasure-hunt rules. Bulk coffee, food, consumables — those items lived and died on reliability. Shoppers weren’t there to hunt for their coffee; they needed it in the same spot every time and it had to be in stock. Different product mission, different customer expectations of what the experience should be.
That’s my problem with a lot of the AI push in stores today. It’s a great tool for the reliability side of the business — inventory, findability, checkout friction. But when retailers apply the same logic to the discovery side, they’re optimizing for their own efficiency, not the shopper’s mission. Don’t force customers onto a platform because it’s better for you — lead them to the experience that fits what they came in for.
As a customer in physical retail I have experiences ranging from delightfully entertaining, to boring, to deeply frustrating. I avoid digital tools while in a physical store unless I’m at Home Depot and I need the aisle and bin mumber for the widget I am looking for. I did my digital homework at home. As a digital customer, I feel followed, nudged, harrassed, pestered, annoyed, chased, etc. There are times I don’t click on something because I don’t want to trigger the barrage of followup emails. “Hey! That shirt you looked at is going to sell out any minute!” Please. To me, it already feels like AI is being over-used, and we are just getting warmed up. Neil Saunders comment about “digital detox via serendipity and community” gets my thunderous applause.
What I share with all brick and mortar owners and or store managers is that everything is about what you want your consumer to feel. Humans feel internally and live externally so the experience provided needs to understand what that emotion is for what they are offering. It wont ever be and never has been 1 answer it is a balance. Consumers wanting basic things tend to want efficiency and ease in their experience. Those consumers tend to like tech supported things that make it more efficient. Consumers taking time to come in for things such as clothing at least in women’s clothing end to want more inspiration and support that is personal and the tech supported things within that experience can turn them away because if they wanted that they can go on-line. This does however require then an investment in well trained staff and payroll investment. Consumers have lots of choices today in how they shop and that can and has caused choice overwhelm for many so those who reflect on this now and evaluate that brick and mortar experience could see a positive change in their sales and return customers.
If the technology stores are using to enhance the a customer’s experience works, then keep doing it. Most of that is about personalization. The problem is when the technology misses. The customer may accept the first miss, but it won’t take long before they realize this isn’t a personalized experience. While the customer won’t describe it in these words, the best way to describe a personalized experience is a poorly executed marketing strategy.
Consumers love a good experience but that isn’t what drives long-term affinity to your business and environment. Connection is a level deeper. It’s what more and more customers are looking for from retailers and the physical stores they frequent. Experience gets you in the door once or twice. Connection keeps you coming back and most of the best ways to create connection are not done through technology or digitally as things sit today.
In recent years, experts predicted in-store retail media would explode. The tension between multisensory experiences that are stimulating vs. irritating to customers helps to explain why retailers are wary of digitizing and monetizing their physical stores.
There is a category error buried in the JLL data. Shoppers are not tired of technology, they are tired of the technology pointed at them rather than at the shelf. Having run retail execution across more than 50 countries, I would wager that a large share of that 72 percent who felt overwhelmed were standing in a store with competing POS material, cluttered signage and a planogram that had quietly drifted, not in a store with too many screens. It is worth naming the uncomfortable part: much of the visual noise in a supermarket is sold, not designed. I spent years on the consumer goods side buying that space, and trade budgets reward interruption, so the store gets louder every quarter by contract, not by accident. If a retailer genuinely wants calm, the lever is enforcing execution standards and repricing the clutter it sells, not removing screens. Point computer vision at the shelf instead of at the shopper, and the store starts to feel calm as a by product of simply being correct.
Shopper overload is real, and retailers often miss the boat because more of something often seems better. A recent concept I’ve heard summarizes this perfectly… Retailers organize traditionally around their business performance and categories. Consumers organize around their lives. And so this becomes a key opportunity gap which AI can help narrow if retail is willing to let customer centricity take center stage in strategy and decision making. The customer experience strategy should always come from their vantage point, not more of whatever.
It is all about balance. Technology (e.g., AI) has its place in retail. As does genuine human interaction. The key for meeting consumers at the right point in their interaction is to use technology as an enabler and insight tool, while relying on traditional customer service and one-on-one relationships to flourish.
The biggest risk to narrowing product discovery and search actually resides with the brands who are not among the top tier. Often described as “the tail,” CPG brands left out of digital discovery will simply disappear from view, relevance, and shopping baskets. To survive, product differentiation must prevail along with a huge dose of the balance described earlier.