How will stores of the future captivate the consumer?
That was the question posed to a power panel of executives in the second pit stop of a global conference series.
BOF Voices, produced by trade platform Business of Fashion, gathered executives from Lane Crawford, L'Eclaireur and Aesop to weigh in on the future of retail.
The Australian instalment, staged at Sydney Opera House, was moderated by Business of Fashion chief Imran Amed.
The panel included L'Eclaireur founder Armand Hadida, Aesop chief executive Michael O'Keeffe and Pedder Group special projects director Kim Bui Kollar.
Here are the core lessons.
1. The changing role of collections
Hadida segmented the fashion industry into three categories: commercial, creative and couture.
"The creative is the most risky business," he said. "If you talk about what will be the future of retail for creative? It's hard.
"The risk is always you never sell more than 50% of all your inventory. You can not survive if you want to be a purist."
Hadida noted the hardships faced by multi-brand boutiques targeting selective over commercial customers.
"The real story is the collections. How can you be competitive with two collections a year?
"Big companies like Zara make 50 collections a year. How can you bring the customer to you?
"You are going so slow, you are sleeping in your store. Now they are doing pre-collections, it's not even enough."
Amed countered by noting the changing relevancy of traditional wholesale models.
"The result of having collection after collection after collection working on a wholesale model is you have all this excess product and it all gets discounted," he said.
"One of the biggest challenges facing the retail sector is deep discounting.
"How do you balance freshness and newness while ensuring you're not stuck with all this product, that gets discounted and dilutes margins?."
Hadida opined the need to create new sources of store traffic.
For L'Eclaireur, this recently included a collaboration with the Alain Ducasse Culinary School to offer a spring series of cooking classes.
2. The changing role of retail stores
"Physical retail is not dead," O'Keeffe declared.
While the Aesop chief acknowledged growing competition in the Australian retail landscape, he argued survival is weighted on changing imperatives.
"If you're just competing on product, unless it's price, then you're competing against the Amazon's of this world and you're going to be beaten.
"The onus on retailers, or the pressure on retailers, is that much greater and it's a mindset from a product driven business to a service driven experience."
Kollar quantified the new retail rule book through four pillars: emotion, creativity, authenticity and discovery.
"It's toying with the idea that a store is not just about selling."
The Pedder Group executive noted a collaboration involving department store giant Lane Crawford and artist James Jean.
Jean was commissioned to create a live painting installation at the Blitz Glasshouse site, which was live streamed and extended through an accessories collection designed exclusively for the store.
Hadida agreed it is impossible to follow the "old recipe" of retail.
"Our last experience was to do a space...but without clothing," the L'Eclaireur founder said.
"We were looking to surprise.
"Coming in the shop, in the store, but nothing physically present on the display.
"We present something totally different design, fragrances and accessories.
"We start to use all the new technology, we build this bridge between the classic store and the e-business.
"This is an experience we had and we are ready to follow this experience."
3. The changing role of technology
"Unless it's really going to enhance that customer experience, it just gets in the way."
O'Keeffe, who described Aesop as "fairly technology light", added the brand values simplicity in technology.
This includes the use of in-store iPads in major capital cities, allowing consumers to browse information in multiple languages.
"We do register 70 to 80% of all transactions that go through the store and we do find, increasingly, customers jumping between channels, jumping between cities," he added.
"For a sales associate to pull up the information, to know that customer's history, to know that they're travelling and recommend different products, is really useful.
"It's a tool to help their effectiveness."
For Hadida, the introduction of a simple back-end system assisted in inventory issues.
"I saw staff and the managers always fighting to get the collections but it was impossible to buy all of them and multiply by six stores.
"It was also important for each destination to have a DNA with different selections."
The introduction of new software allowed the firm to share stock between stores, with all pieces catalogued and photographed for transparency.
"It helped us a lot."
BOF Voices was presented in partnership with QIC Global Real Estate.