Management Practice Insights
DOI: 10.59571/mpi.v4i2.15
Year: 2026, Volume: 4, Issue: 2, Pages: 169-175
Original Article
C. Deep Prakashi* & Dhruven Zalai
iS.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research
*Corresponding author
Email: [email protected]
Received Date:31 May 2026, Accepted Date:30 September 2026, Published Date:15 October 2026
The rise of e-commerce platforms poses an existential threat to physical retailers worldwide, be it the shopping malls in the United States or in Singapore. One reason is that e-commerce platforms offer convenience, assortment, and prices that are hard to match in brick-and-mortar stores. Many traditional retailers have responded with frequent promotions and discounts. However, these tactics often create a commoditisation trap where customers become loyal to deals rather than to the retailer. So how can retail store managers, category managers, and merchandising heads drive increases in store traffic, customer engagement, and repeat purchases in physical retail environments? A promising approach to revitalising retail comes from by Research Jane Gu, Cristina Nistor, and Matthew Selove, through the concept of the ‘treasure hunt’ shopping experience.1 Their study underscores the excitement of searching and discovering products. Extending these insights, our essay introduces the S.A.F.A.R. framework as a practical guide for systematically transforming discovery into customer loyalty and repeat store visits
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© 2026 Published by SPJIMR. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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