I happened to pause last week at a pile of newspapers in my father’s house in Atlanta.
The reason: A feature article about Cisco on the front page of the March 25th business section of the Journal-Constitution.
The article was interesting. But best of all, it jumped from the front page to the inside pages of the section… which is why, on page D2, I stumbled across one of the best, common sense advisory articles on retail technology I’ve read in a long time.
My colleagues Jon Stine and Lisa Fretwell with Cisco IBSG recently published research about consumers that are constantly channel hopping in their shopping journey. We all have personal experiences shopping on the web, in the store and on mobile devices.
I recently in the middle of a conversation during lunch, made a reservation on Open Table app, purchased a case for my phone on amazon app and bought a music album on iTunes (Doctor Who Series 6), and pulled up directions to the local home improvement store, all in 10 minutes. Obviously the consumer trend is shopping across multiple channels, and some retailers are succeeding in this new world, and some are not.
I sat down with Brian Kilcourse, managing partner of Retail Systems Research and this was one of the topics we talked about.
Traditionally, customer satisfaction is driven by product availability and the ability of the staff to assist the shopper and complete the transaction. This model today is being broken by the modern consumer who is playing by different rules.
In a recent New York Times article on younger shoppers who prefer technology to staff assistance, retailers like Nordstrom are discovering that customers are using mobile applications not just in remote locations, but right in the store requiring them to improve their store’s Wi-Fi experience.
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
