Retail’s Back to the Future: 3 Back-to-Basics Best Practices

What had been considered outdated is suddenly innovative again. The pendulum is swinging back, and with it, a renewed appreciation for the power of in-person experience, customer connection, and developing top talent from within.

It has been so interesting to see these trends play out, because they remind me of the norms and best practices I grew up with and that sparked my passion for the retail industry.

I am a “retail brat,” having grown up going to work with my dad on Saturdays at his chain of paint and wallpaper stores. When I was in high school, my brother helped me secure a job at the shoe store where he worked as the district manager. The store was in the mall, so during breaks and before and after work, I had the opportunity to shop and explore the mall and catch up with my friends who were also working there or just hanging out. It was a cool experience that catapulted a lifelong career in an industry I still love.

Fast forward to today and you can see that in many ways, the more things change the more they stay the same.

Retail has spent the last decade running at full speed toward digital transformation, automation, and frictionless everything. BOPIS (buy online, pickup in store), which took off during Covid, made client service convenient; it also made it pretty transactional. Intentionally or not, it has almost become a customer avoidance/sales prevention strategy as it practically eliminates upselling and rapport-building conversations with customers.

Meanwhile, Gen Z is flocking to the malls. Yes, malls! And not just for shopping, but for community, culture, and connection. Remember, this is the generation that includes many who missed high school proms, homecoming parades, football games, their graduation on stage, and the subsequent parties that followed, all due to Covid. Many of them experienced their first semester in college online, without the dorm experience and the chance to move out of the family home for the first time.

As new generations of young people discover the simple joys of hanging out and shopping at the mall, retailers and shopping centers are responding by hosting events, live experiences, and immersive pop-ups. In short, they’re bringing the energy back to the retail industry and in-person experiences.

With more customers now choosing to return to stores, the frontline team is once again in the spotlight. While AI tracks our every click and serves up products in our feeds, the in-store experience is making a comeback, and customer service—the real, human kind—is becoming a competitive advantage. An engaged, committed, skilled sales associate doesn’t just suggest; they understand. There’s a huge difference when real people, not bots, read and determine your needs and build trust through conversation and empathy.

Bottom line: Now more than ever, retailers are being challenged to get back to the basics:

• Investing in customer service training to meet the expectations of a more vocal, socially connected shopper
• Creating experiences, not just transactions
• Shifting the mindset around frontline staffing from short-term fillers to long-term talent strategies

Growing Retail Talent for Today and Tomorrow

I recently had a conversation about retail’s “back to the future” pattern with one of our clients, Rob Phillips, Sr. Director, National Retail Sales, at Ariat International Inc. For more than three decades, Ariat has been one of the leading boot and western apparel brand manufacturers. In 2016 the company opened their first of now 30 retail stores as part of their omnichannel strategy, which also includes wholesale and e-commerce. These company-owned stores are just one part the much larger number of locations where Ariat products are sold—over 7,000 locations in the U.S., and through more than 6,500 wholesale partners worldwide.

I was interested to hear about Ariat’s new “Let’s Grow 20-Year Associates” initiative, which reminded me of similar talent strategies we implemented in the ’80s and ’90s when there was a strong emphasis on developing and retaining employees for long tenures with the organization.

Here’s how Rob explains it:

At Ariat, we’re focused on building 20-year employees, not short-term hires that happen all too often in retail. We’d rather retrain than rehire, and we recognize our teams through programs grounded in our core values: Teamwork, Integrity, Respect, Quality, and Innovation. By investing in our people through leadership training and development along with product knowledge, we’re creating a stronger, more consistent experience for our customers.

I’m truly inspired by this philosophy, which is both forward-thinking and reflective of the “good old days” in retail. This mindset and approach to retention and associate development ties neatly into those three “back-to-the-basics” retailer best practices highlighted above. We all know the cost of replacing a frontline associate can be up to 50% more than their annual salary, while investing in training and retention for the talent you already have pays dividends in performance, loyalty, and customer experience.

This isn’t just nostalgia; it’s smart business. The retailers that will lead in this next chapter aren’t those clinging to the latest tech trend. They’re the ones that recognize people still matter, and creating a store culture worth staying and shopping in is the real innovation.

Everything old may just be new again—and that could be exactly what retail needs.

Now more than ever, customers expect memorable experiences and exceptional service—and the only way we can achieve that is through an engaged workforce. MOHR Retail convened a panel of retail experts to explore some of the pressing challenges retailers are facing through the lens of a “strategic talent revival.”

• Download the white paper for a summary of key takeaways from that discussion, including best practices for creating a compelling employee value proposition, building bench strength, and implementing “everboarding” practices to attract, engage, and grow talent in retail today.