The conference call buzz of past weeks confirms that one of the retail tech topics du jour is the quest for a “mobility strategy.”
Requests from good retailers. Meetings with smart folks hard at work identifying use models and value-creation plays for both associates and consumers.
No question that it’s important.
But every retailer should be asking how important – especially consumer mobility. Especially in today’s world of cross-channel shopping.
Thank you to everyone who visited the Cisco NRF booth last month. We had a huge of amount traffic and a number of exciting demonstrations plus the announcement of our “Catch Em and Keep Em” consumer research study. We also shot a number of videos from the show floor which I hope you all enjoy.
We announced the new Catch Em and Keep Em consumer research on how retailers can attract and retain channel hopping shoppers. The research is now avialable for download here
I was at a technology conference in London late last year, and the topic was mobility – and, inevitably, BYOD: bring your own device.
The mobility evangelists (and they dominated the four-person panel) waxed poetic as to all the fabulous things that iPhone- and Android-armed employees could bring to the business. Rich content! Social networking! Collaboration! Meeting each other for lunch!
Then a grouchy American analyst walked to the podium, and growled two words: “Data Security.”
And silence fell like a thick blanket over the room.
BYOD is one of technology’s topics du jour, an issue that will create a few tons of PowerPoint and a fresh revenue line for consulting firms in the next 18-24 months.
Cynicism aside, it’s a very important issue – and not just for ICT shops. And, it’s an issue that will be easily misunderstood.
Yes, BYOD is about data security. Yes, there’s a need for hard and high corporate security walls. Clearly-stated rules. And devout attention to PCI.
But beyond that, let’s pause and reflect.
BYOD is not about the devices. The devices will continue to evolve at Moore’s Law speed, and the stuff the kids are bringing into the office today will be obsolete by the time your new policies reach the governance committee.
Truth be told, BYOD is about the big tech-driven generational change in expectations and behavior. It’s about the new normal of life with the Internet. Life in the Internet.
It’s about Millennials who use technology like I use a knife and fork. It’s about a tsunami wave flooding every phase of business life – from the headquarters office to the distribution center to the store.
And this tsunami will not just touch devices. It will drive change in the cloud content that employees will use. It will drive change in their willingness to sit in cubes (versus do the work at home or at Starbucks or wherever there’s a fast wireless pipe). It will drive change in their expectations for interaction and participation, for education and training.
It will even touch the glowing third rail of data security. (As this is the generation of Wiki-Leaks and unbridled transparency on Facebook.)
Using stores as showrooms for online purchases is the “new normal” for today’s tech- and Internet-savvy shoppers. So how do retailers “catch” these channel-hopping customers and “keep” them buying within their own brand?
The Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) believes retailers can increase sales both in stores and online by creating “mashops” that combine immersive online content with engaging in-store experiences. This idea is backed up by Cisco IBSG’s latest research, which revealed that digital content has reached a new level of influence.
Surprisingly, shoppers now prefer online sources to people when making buying decisions. Read More »
One of the key questions I get from retailers is “How can I use technology to create experiences that inspire my customers to buy more, both in the store and online?” In the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group’s (IBSG) work with leading worldwide retailers, we uncovered what we believe is the answer—the “inspire” trigger. Specifically, inspire triggers are emotionally charged shopping experiences that make customers exclaim, “I never thought of that, let’s buy it,” or, “Wow, I want to by that now.”
From this work, Cisco IBSG developed Cisco StyleMeTM—a virtual fashion mirror that combines augmented reality with the latest mobile and networking technologies to create a fun, new, interactive way to try on clothing and accessories virtually. Cisco StyleMe lets customers visually browse a wide range of products; build outfits; receive expert recommendations; capture images of what they look like to share with friends and family; create a digital wardrobe of items in which they’re interested; and buy their selections in the store or online.
Customer testing shows that Cisco StyleMe is a hit with all types of consumers, but especially with a group that surprised us—shoppers over 50 years of age. The older generation clearly sees the benefits of easily trying on new outfits and getting expert advice, which far outweighs any apprehensions they might have about using the technology.
For retailers, Cisco StyleMe has the potential to 1) grow cross-channel sales by giving customers access to an extended range of inventory and enabling them to buy in-store and online; 2) strengthen customer loyalty by creating differentiated in-store experiences and enabling follow-up with customers after their store visit; and (3) increase conversion rates by allowing customers to receive relevant recommendations and interact with friends and family who influence their buying decisions.
Given the success of Cisco StyleMe, we believe creating rich, digital, cross-channel experiences in the store represents a powerful new way to inspire customers to buy. To get started, ensure your technology infrastructure is up to the task of supporting interactive rich-media experiences. By starting now to ensure your technology infrastructure is up to date, you’ll be in a strong position to capture more sales from customers both online and in your stores.
OK, retail technologists. It’s the new year. Time for resolutions.
Grab the pencil (so you can revise, not erase) and the notepad, plug in the earbuds, and settle into your thinking chair. And take the first step in getting rid of those old bad habits.
Resolve to address those big, ugly, long-standing structural weaknesses that weigh you down like a ball and chain. Weaknesses like the non-integrated, multiple databases residing within the legacy applications. Like the oft taken-for-granted time-to-capability performance (caused by a legacy store architecture) that measures all-store roll-outs in years and gets a constant eyeroll and deep sigh from the SVP of Ops.
Resolve to look that ancient, deeply-customized application that you prop each year with more people and money squarely in the eye.
Resolve to lose weight. Heavy, power-sucking, PO-abusing CPU weight. Virtualize the data centers and start the process of removing CPUs (and all the break-fix maintenance costs) from the store. Thin is in. So is operational simplicity.
Resolve to demand value from your vendors – which, as we all know, is different from the lowest price. Demand that they help you solve specific business problems. Demand that they bring their best strategists and thinkers to the table.
Resolve to ignore all the one-off shiny technologies du jour. Easier said than done, especially with NRF around the corner, the marketing SVP sputtering that “everyone else is doing it,” and the CEO remarking that his nephew had one at Christmas. (Mobility! Smartphone apps! Tablets! Interactive kiosks! Ooooh!)
Resolve to embrace BYOD, and push it forward. Your corporate leaders of tomorrow won’t necessarily thank you. It’s just that they’ll be willing to work for you instead of the competition.
Resolve to toss out of the room any consultant or vendor sales rep who talks about “customer experience” without detailed considerations of your segment, your price point, your brand promise, and the overall customer journey by persona – all the way through service and loyalty. Resolve to ask them how many times they’ve visited your stores.
In Part 1 of the blog I wrote about video technology, part 2 on omni channel, for the third and last part of the blog series I would like to show what Las Vegas is doing in terms of selling the total consumer experience rather than just products and services.
In one sense Las Vegas has always been about selling the experience when it comes to gambling. You don’t get a tangible product for your bets (unless you win) but people gamble for the experience. As gaming is legalized in many countries as well as states, Las Vegas has adapted itself to market the Las Vegas experience beyond gaming.
While I was on vacation I visited the Stratosphere hotel and casino which is the tallest structure in Las Vegas which features casinos, restaurants and thrill rides on top. Its latest offering SkyJump (package costs including video via wrist cam and photo) allows participants to jump off the tower at the 850 ft and free fall down and land via decelerator wire. Certainly a customer experience not easily forgotten
In My Part 1 of the retail blog series about Las Vegas I wrote about the use of video in Las Vegas to enhance visitor experience in Las Vegas. In this second blog I’d like to look at the some of the ways Las Vegas using omni channel to reach out across customers across multiple channels to drive loyalty and sales.
Use of Self Service machines
With the high traffic real estate in the casinos, I saw more vending machines than the usual cigarette and soda vending machines. This one by u*tique at the Cosmopolitan hotel Las Vegas and features a lot of higher end gift items. Unfortunately my photo did not do it justice but I found the following video
Over the Christmas holidays I spent 5 days in Las Vegas visiting friends and ring in the new year in the city that never sleeps. Over the years Las Vegas continues to transform itself to keep itself relevant from the original sin city and gambling capital to the modern convention/vacation destination.
I spent new year’s eve with 320,000 visitors which is an impressive number by any standards, plus I managed to do some shopping and visiting a few attractions between visiting friends.
I thought I’d share my observations on how Las Vegas continues to delight visitors in a series of blogs and what retailers can learn from it.
Today’s I’d like to focus on the use of video technology for customers in Las Vegas
One of the first impression when you walk in is that it doesn’t look like a video screen but backlit wall panels. Only when the images start moving do you realize it is a video wall. As you can see from the video Read More »
If you’re a retail technologist and you haven’t yet read the December 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review, let me offer a friendly suggestion: Stop what you’re doing. Find a way to buy the issue. Sit down and absorb.
Three articles (one of them an interview with JC Penney’s Ron Johnson, he of Target and Apple Store fame). It’s all about how we need to be thinking about the physical environment of retailing. What it represents. Why it’s critically important today and tomorrow. And what retailers have to do to save the store, and in doing so, save the business.
The reality of today’s shopping behavior is that it’s cross-channel. Consumers bounce between the so-called touch points as they move through the shopping journey, from PC to mobile to store. And then maybe to the cash-wrap. Or back to the PC. Or maybe to the tablet while curled up on the sofa.
At any of these points, you can win a customer. At any point you can lose a customer. The data from numerous sources – including Cisco’s October 2011 survey of US and UK shoppers – makes clear that the store can play a huge role in online transactions, and that the PC and smartphone play a huge role in store transactions.
Bottom line for those who diss the store: it’s still where the vast majority of shopping is happening. And, if you starve your store experience, you’ll lose customers in droves – even among those who found you on the web. (Anyone listening in, Hoffman Estates?)
We at Cisco have been studying cross-channel shopping for the past two years, and late on Monday afternoon, January 16th, at the National Retail Federation Show in New York, we’ll release our latest findings on where they’re shopping and how they’re shopping. We’ll also share how shoppers responded to some of the latest immersive, interactive digital ideas to hit the store floor.
One of the many challenges retailers face today is how to differentiate from the competition in areas that would be considered generic or less attractive to new generation of shoppers.
Take the example of classical piano and instrumental music. In the age of MMORPG, Reality Television and MTV, how does a piano store in the small town of St. George, Utah and a bunch of musicians gain relevance and end up on CBS News.com and videos on YouTube with 23 million views?
Cello Wars (Star Wars Parody) Lightsaber Duel -- Steven Sharp Nelson
Pirates of the Caribbean -- Incredible Piano Solo of Jarrod Radnich Filmed by ThePianoGuys
Thanksgiving holiday came and went with Black Friday breaking records from last year.
The highlights of the numbers that have been quoted in the press today are:
Sales increased 6.6% over the same day last year, representing $11.4 billion in retail purchases and biggest amount ever spent during the day.
Retail foot-traffic increased by 5.1% over 2010 Source: Shoppertrak
Looking beyond the headline numbers, here are some other interesting data points:
Black Friday has been stretched with pre-promotions and longer shopping hours. Retail sales were up over 3.5% the week of November 12th and 18th
Data from ShopperTrak indicated that consumers are visiting fewer stores per trip (being more efficient due to time crunch) with average of 3.1 stores down from 3.19 last year. Shoppers are also doing more research on purchases before the trip.
Another report from ComScore shows that Black Friday extended online before Cyber Monday.
Bfads.net, number one most visited web site on Black Friday promotions
Source: ComScore
$12.7 billion has been spent so far online to date this holiday season with $816 million in Online sales on Black Friday
Thanksgiving Day online sales increased 18% to $479 million (perhaps after dinner shopping instead of watching Thanskgiving football?)
Top five online retail properties (excluding auction sites) are Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple with Amazon having 50% more visitors than any other retailer
What does this mean for retailers? Here are some thoughts:
