Here’s an item that caught our eye.
You know those body scanners in airports that caused so many objections from travellers over their perceived intrusiveness? Well, a U.S. company has redeployed these same scanners to help consumers determine their precise measurements and help them select the exact brand and style of clothes that fit them best.
Could this bring a whole new meaning to the term “fitting room”?
Read the full story and watch the video here via Retail Customer Experience.
Doug Stephens
Consumers are placing far more emphasis on corporate compassion and social responsibility as key drivers in their brand choices. Yet some brands continue to engage in industry practices that seem to fly in the face of these values. The Tampa Bay Tribune broke a story today involving what seems to be a policy on the part of Victoria’s Secret stores of destroying returned apparel items that it deems non-sellable. I spoke with the Tribune about this little-known industry practice and its lasting effect on consumer brand sentiment.
Read the full story here
Via Computerworld
By Matt Hamblen
The Blackberry Playbook Tablet
Nobody expects the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to sell as well as the iPad 2. Still, Research In Motion seems to have taken an especially measured approach with its PlayBook launch, which started Tuesday in stores such as Best Buy and Radio Shack.
All along, analysts have predicted that RIM would mainly sell the first Wi-Fi-only version direct to business customers, RIM’s traditional base.
Sony's new concept store
The days of abundant demand and easy sales are over and it appears Sony is facing that music head-on. The company has not only unveiled it’s new and decidedly cooler store concept in Los Angeles but also closed 11 of it’s older format stores.
RIS News quotes a Sony spokesperson as saying that, the closings were “a result of our ongoing evaluations and careful review of our future direction. Sony continually evaluates all areas of our retail business to ensure that we are offering the best consumer experience while maximizing profitability.”
The re-tooling by Sony is indicative of the broader rethinking that is taking place among the retail community in general as it faces the prospect of a flatter economy and higher consumer expectations.
By Doug Stephens
I’ve read a number of articles recently commenting on the conspicuous lack of social marketing in the luxury sector. While it’s also true that participation in social media among luxury brands has grown, the fact remains that the general level of activity has been low – especially considering the fervor around social media in general. “Why are luxury brands such laggards?” many are asking.
But let’s think about it for a minute. In the purest sense social media is built on is the principle of inclusiveness – the genuine willingness to give and share openly with others. Social media is the connective tissue between friends but more importantly between those who might not otherwise belong to the same social circles; people from various walks of life who are connected even momentarily by an experience. The essence of social media is that we all have a voice – we’re all included.
Social media has been successful in digitizing the underlying social nature of shopping. In essence, shopping is more fun when we include others. Whether it’s telling friends about the big sale that’s happening or posting a phone-cam picture of the cool new shoes you just bought, social media feeds wonderfully into the context of the shopping experience.
However, contrast this to the principles upon which luxury has always existed. Luxury by definition is not inclusive – just the contrary! Luxury is not for the unwashed masses but rather for the elite. In fact, many of the most successful and enduring luxury retailers are without question the most exclusive. Arguably the greatest danger faced by any luxury brand is its own ubiquity! It’s not about openly sharing your purchases with friends to inspire fun but instead quietly and smugly coveting prized items to foster envy.
So, I’m not sure we’re really dealing with a lack of understanding on the part of luxury marketers when it comes to social media marketing. These people are probably as personally active in social networks as any of us. I just don’t think that social media marketing is as relevant for a purveyor of true luxury items as it may be for an American Eagle say. True luxury will never be social in the sense in which we understand social media today. Sure there may be closed social networks for yacht sailors and Bugatti Veyron drivers but don’t expect a friend request any time soon.
By Doug Stephens
There’s an ongoing debate about the viability of “bricks and mortar” retail in a digital world. With online and mobile commerce growing at a double-digit pace and physical stores lagging far behind, how long will it be before clicks overtake bricks? Some extremists predict an almost complete eradication of physical stores.
While I agree that a very high percentage (and eventually the majority) of what we buy we’ll buy online and/or have automatically replenished, I also believe there will always be a place in our society for physical stores.
image courtesy of Frog Design
The rationale lies in the reasons why we shop in the first place. The first and most obvious reason is to acquire the things we need and want. It’s clearly this aspect of of shopping that the internet has had the greatest impact on. The ability to select from hundreds of products, compare options, order what we want and have it on our doorstep the following day has put perilous pressure on traditional store models.
But the second and perhaps more important reason we shop has remained unchanged since the beginning of time. Shopping is a social activity. We venture to stores for the same reason we congregated in the market bazaar over a thousand years ago – to be a part of the crowd, to people-watch and for a few hours to lose ourselves in the magic of aimless browsing. At it’s core, shopping has much less to do with economic need and a lot more to do with human gratification.
What’s certain is that our beliefs about the purpose stores serve is changing quickly. The once well-defined line between online and in-store experiences is now being obscured. Social and experiential elements of the physical store are being incorporated into online stores. Apple for example recently applied for a patent that seems aimed at making online shoppers actually feel like they’re in the store by merging aspects of the two experiences. Likewise, collaborations like that between Adidas and Intel, are proving that in-store experiences can be more web-like by bringing information and media right to the customers finger tips in a highly interactive way.
But the question remains, with consumers becoming increasingly comfortable buying just about anything online, what real value will stores bring to the brands they represent? Why build stores?
We’ve traditionally used media to drive consumers into stores. If marketers could get us across the store threshold, their job was largely done. In other words, the store was the end of the marketing funnel – the goal line so to speak.
Increasingly, stores will instead act as branded media. They will function less as places that simply sell products and more like interactive galleries, showrooms and workshops – places where consumers can have aesthetic, visceral and emotional experiences with the brand – that can’t be replicated online. In this sense the store will become the customer’s first brand touchpoint – not the last. The entry point of the marketing funnel.
With this shift, the financial expectations of stores will change. Brands will regard their stores less as sales and profit centers and more as a marketing and media expense. Conventional store success metrics like sales per square foot and inventory turns, will steadily give way to marketing and media-based metrics. A good day in-store won’t be entirely about how many widgets were sold but also about how many positive impressions were generated and how those impressions converted into social buzz and ongoing brand interactions.
Today’s stores work to fill the customers cart with product. The store of tomorrow will work to fill customer’s handhelds with branded media, applications and other digital incentives to form a relationship with the brand. In other words, the store of the future will not simply aim to open the customer’s wallet but also to open their minds and hearts to the brand in its totality.
This concept represents a profound paradigm shift and one that will be problematic for many retailers to get their arms around. For savvy retail brands on the other hand, it will represent the next frontier of retail supremacy.
By Doug Stephens
One of the hottest topics at this year’s National Retail Federation conference was mobile point of sale. Whether offering customers the convenience of self-checkout or providing a higher level of personal service, it appears the days of lining up at the cash wrap are numbered.
I caught up with the team at Global Bay, a pioneer in the field of mobile P.O.S. for a first-hand look at their mobile solution. Some of you may remember Global Bay for their unassuming but impressive YouTube product demo about a year ago, in which they convert an iPod touch into a working retail checkout.
In the video below, I talk with Global Bay Managing Director Justin Coward about the trend towards cutting the cord on P.O.S. and get a demonstration of some of the new product innovations they’re bringing to the market.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYJLHFIxQCc[/youtube]
By Doug Stephens
I sat on a panel discussion this week that explored how social and mobile media is changing the way customer feedback is collected, analyzed and acted upon by retailers. One specific question asked how mobile devices can be used in a retail environment to facilitate better customer feedback or improve responsiveness to complaints. Within the context of this discussion, the idea was to comment on how mobile is being used as a customer service channel but it occurred to me that there’s a much more important data track. One that provides a completely new and revolutionary opportunity for marketers.
First, one has to appreciate the historic problem with consumer research and the challenge it’s always posed for retail marketers. Consumer research often attempts to predict future consumer behavior but the reality is that consumers
very often say things that don’t correspond at all to what they eventually do in store. In fact, there’s often a gaping disconnect between a consumer’s needs as articulated in focus groups and the basket of stuff that gets taken home from the store. If the two matched up even the least bit closely, marketing would be a cinch but they often don’t and with good reason – consumers rarely have a clue why they do what they do in stores! And in other cases, focus group participants simply don’t tell the truth, which probably doesn’t come as any great shock.
One thing is for sure, the problem with consumer and shopper research isn’t born out of a lack of data. We’ve got a plethora of information on both ends of the shopping spectrum, loads of focus groups, surveys and intercepts to gauge needs on the front end and a steady flow of point of sale data to analyze purchases on the back end. What have been missing are the critical insights in the middle – what shoppers actually do in the store! This has largely been the realm of anecdotal data and lab-based studies, both of which are often highly inaccurate.
That’s where I believe mobile apps, near field communication, location based services and other intelligent retail technologies are poised to revolutionize our approach to consumer and shopper research. For the first time ever, researchers will be able to connect the expressed needs of consumers with their actual, physical path to purchase. Questions like where they go in the store and where don’t they go, where they stop and what they race right by will finally be precisely answerable. We’ll have visibility into the specific events that trigger a customer to abandon their visit or buy more than usual. We’ll see more clearly what occurrences precede a complaint. We’ll even have the potential to see where they’ve come from and where they go after leaving the store. And what’s critical is that marketers can view this kind of information in aggregate according to what thousands of consumers do, not simply within a narrow and controlled study group.
But understanding the consumer’s physical path is only one of the new streams of data. The other and more important stream will reveal what they actually engaged and interacted with in the space. Which in-store marketing messages did they connect with and for how long, which coupons did they download, which products did they scan but put back without buying? Marketers will see where consumers required more or less information to make a decision and perhaps even when they compared prices with competitors before deciding. Even insights on how different ages, sexes and races move through a given retail environment are entirely possible.
Finally marketers can validate the reams of data they currently collect with credible information on the consumer’s actual in-store behavior. This presents a whole new world of opportunity to give retail consumers what they want – potentially without ever once asking them. It’s also chance to better understand the gap between what consumers say and what they do.
In fact, it’s entirely possible that this new ability to validate in-store consumer behavior will render front and back end consumer surveys a thing of the past.
