Filed under: Retail, Shopping, Consumer Goods, Shopping Trends
"The next five years will bring more change to retail than the last 100 years," says Cyriac Roeding, CEO of Shopkick, a location-based shopping app. And he said that a few years ago.
DealNews talked to retail executives and observers about changes that are starting out or are coming. Through these changes, you'll see various themes emerge, including the growth of the individual experience and the explosion of digital technology.
"It's reaching out and interacting, being able to have a more personalized dialogue," says Bruce Molloy, vice president of global business development at Customer Mobile and an expert on the evolving retail space. "It's where we are as consumers, that people want that kind of individuation. And people want a continuous experience whether people are speaking to someone, or on a tablet, or on a smartphone. All the pieces in the process will know you and what your interests are."
If the Shoe Fits, Upload It
In terms of a custom-made shoe experience, nothing can top what's going on at The Left Shoe Co. in Los Angeles. The Left Shoe puts customers' feet through a 3D scan that takes 150 pictures. "Those photos are then sent to Portugal, where the shoes are made to order," Molloy says. "To the extent that it works, it's pretty powerful. It's a forerunner of things to come with this kind of personalization."
You Favorite Store Goes for the Geofence
Geofencing is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. So let's say you set a boundary via mobile communications that encompasses a six-square-block area. That would be your geofence, and anyone who enters that area whose contact information you have can receive a text message or email via smartphone or tablet. And when the bullseye of the geofenced turf is a retail outlet, things get mighty interesting.
Media industry analyst Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates cites a San Francisco company called Placecast, which ran a promotion with a Lands' End store in that city. A bulletin went out via mobile, and the results make Borrell laugh in admiration. "Eighty percent of the people who saw the message went in the store. And 60 percent of those people bought merchandise," he says. "Direct mail campaigns have a 1 percent to 2 percent response. It was amazing."
Package Delivery at Your Convenience
Navigating the Supermarket in Super Style
The smartphone has all but replaced the standalone GPS as a product in the average consumer's tech arsenal. That's because mapping apps from Google, Apple, and Waze help us get from point A to B. Ah, but they don't do it indoors. Molloy sees a time in the not-too-distant future when app developers figure out how to map your favorite grocery store or retail store, so that you can just enter your grocery list, for example, and the app does the rest. "You can imagine a GPS that would take you on the most efficient course, where the store knows the things you buy and leads you there," he says.
Customized Commercials
Right now, commercials target consumers as a big group. But as big data gets bigger, retailers will have the ability to hit up each of us as individuals. Based on what retailers know about our buying patterns, "shoppers will receive targeted messages and promotions while in the store, as the system will already know who they are, their lifestyle and purchasing patterns," says Jonathan Asher, executive vice president of Perception Research Services. "It will also link them to cross-category suggestions or specials. So if they put hot dogs in their cart, they'll get a coupon for beans and chips or something in the deli."
Tweeting Your Shopping Needs
Some savvy companies already use Twitter to monitor customer complaints and address customer service. But it's now going a step further than that, where you can tweet at a store and get fashion or purchasing advice on the spot. It's all done by software made by HipLogiq, which combs Twitter looking for tweets that would include a client's keywords and phrases. "A women's clothing store client, for example, may be looking for 'fashion,' 'cute outfit,' or 'closet makeover' on Twitter," says HipLogiq marketing director Ben Read. "Once our software flags the Tweet on a user-friendly dashboard, the owner can then reply directly back with an offer to encourage them to take a look at their store."
Busting Out of Barcode Prison
Everyone who's been in a long checkout line has experienced the frustration of watching a cashier fumble with a product trying to either find the barcode or scan it correctly. In January, a company called Digimarc introduced a new technology that incorporates an invisible digital watermark, not unlike the kind used for currency.
"The clerk no longer has to hunt for the barcode because it's all over the package," says Ed Knudson, executive vice president of sales and marketing for the company. "You and I can't see, it but other devices, including a smartphone, can see it." The code can be embedded onto the product label via Photoshop, though Knudson says it will still be in the trial stage this year. Not that we can wait: Digimarc says the new technology speeds up checkout times by as much as 33 percent.
If You're Just a Touch Hungry, Touch This
Waiters and waitresses do get busy, and there's nothing more frustrating during a lunch or dinner rush than to have them ignore your table. "But imagine sitting right down and placing your order from a touchscreen tabletop menu," says Molloy. He went through this experience at airport eateries in Toronto and Charlotte, North Carolina, which makes sense, since air travelers often have to eat and run. "I saw tablets the size of iPads and you can scroll through, see the descriptions and order what you want," he says. "The photography is fantastic, and it'll make some suggestions about side orders, wine or other things that can go with the menu."
