Retail Speaker Douglas Stephens On The Stores Of The Future [VIDEO]

"Rather than us seeking products, it's products that are seeking us," retail speaker Douglas Stephens said in an exclusive interview with Lavin. Where we once had to physically enter a store to make a purchase (whether it be in person or online), Stephens says, "we're [now] running into opportunities to buy throughout our day." We are becoming increasingly inundated with the opportunity to make purchases on-the-fly; from targeted ads popping up while we scan Facebook, to receiving a ping on our smartphone about a special offer available at a store we've just walked past. As this trend expands, and consumers become accustomed to being able to purchase what they want when they want, Stephens predicts that the expectations for the store owner will start to change.  

As one of the few retail prophets around, Stephens has twenty years of experience forecasting which retail trends will reshape the future of the industry. While he does not believe that the physical store will become obsolete anytime soon—as people shop for the social aspect as much as the physical aspect of purchasing something—there will still be big changes coming to the retail industry. Since it is now so easy to purchase what we need—or even what we don't—shop owners will have to be able to offer consumers something different and make it worth the effort for them to physically visit their store. 

The founder of Retail Prophet, and the author of the forthcoming book The Retail Revival, Stephens is a leading voice on the future of retail and the shopping experience as we know it. His outside-the-box predictions and invigorating keynotes not only help us prepare for the future, but also help us better understand how the retail world works today.