Changing Landscape of Retail Commercial Construction
Walked into a drug store such as CVS, Walgreens, or Wal-Mart lately and noticed things are a little different than past years? You are not dreaming, they are! It’s not only self-checkouts or earlier closing times changing the nature of the 21st century run to the drug store. There are many factors that have led to the change in the layouts of the modern drug store.
One major factor was of course the pandemic that hit us in 2020, that changed us in many ways forever, but how it has impacted the retail commercial landscape is huge as it has had many ripple effects. Prior to the pandemic shoppers were already taking much of their business online and many brick and mortar stores were losing money to internet giants like Amazon, we are already aware of the fall of long term stores such as Toys R Us, Radio Shack, Sears and others due to the rise of online shopping, the pandemic only added fuel to that fire. Due to lockdowns we had no choice but to take our shopping online and unfortunately, this led to a rise in scamming and shoplifting rings.
Stores responses to shoplifting have been to put highly targeted items behind lock and key, shut down stores altogether, and, which may seem counterintuitive, but replace employees with self-checkouts and other robots. However, this does make the stores safer as many repetitive jobs such as cleaning and restocking can be done faster and easier by robots which cannot be robbed or injured or by would-be assailants. Unfortunately, customers don’t feel safe, are frustrated by the locked up items, are shopping even more online, and the entire vicious cycle is causing stores to close, prices to rise and no one to be particularly happy about any of it. However, stores are aware of the dissatisfaction and are testing new technology as a means to resolve the sore points.
Regardless of how the stores attempt to deal with the issues, none of them are necessarily a bad thing for the construction industry. Would we prefer to build new stores from the ground up instead of remodeling old ones? Yes is how we see it! Yes, because it is wonderful to take something that isn’t working and make it more functional and if we can also make it more visually appealing and environmentally sustainable at the same time so much the better. Stores such as CVS and Target for example are requesting remodeling of their stores all over the US to better serve the new modern landscape; adding self checkouts, robotic services, lockboxes, amazon lockers, more natural lighting, and electric vehicle charging ports in the parking lots are all very popular. As we evolve in this ever changing world we must evolve with it and cater to the needs of our clients.
