Toys ‘R Us joins a growing list of retailers who now accept in-store
payment for online orders. We think the shift signals a growing
awareness among retailers of how multi-channel the shopping experience has become. As more and more shoppers seek and expect a
blended experience, the boundaries between online and offline are softening. By accepting
in-store payment for online orders, retailers more
Shopkick’s redesign aims to capture the
couch-to-store loop of the path to purchase. The new focus on layout and color
aspires to extend the app’s footprint to include more pre-shopping browsing.
Gamification isn’t gone entirely, but it’s not as prominent as it once was. Sarah Lacey says “Why fix something
that wasn’t broken?” in her Pandodaily review. But we think Shopkick is just
leveraging their strength in creating intent motivation to better serve shoppers' needs by entering the path to
purchase before the store. more
The path to purchase in the supermarket increasingly includes smartphone use,
but WHO is using them is what caught our attention. The gap between
millennials and older shoppers is quite small, according to the study featured
in this Supermarket News article. Just 1% to 3% separated millenials from
shoppers ages 30 to 65 across a wide spectrum of activities. more
This weekend, Walgreens reached out to a major shopper touchpoint
with the introduction of their new Happy and Healthy Magazine in many
Sunday newspapers. Did you get yours? The glossy magazine will appear
twice a year, and it's heavy on “solutions” – both health and lifestyle -
for a wide variety of shoppers. We think this new retailer magazine is important to note for two reasons.
more
We need to look in different places to get a full picture of leading-edge retail innovation, as Tom Van Aman observed in our recent blog on change, so Shane Happach's Huffington Post story caught our eye. Latin American shoppers are enthusiastically embracing ecommerce, which means that the leading traditional retailers across Latin America will be competing aggressively for this new business so they can better serve their customers. more
We like how Charles Gold turns around the perspective on the path-to-purchase in this MENG blog. Gold says we focus too much on the internal - on sales processes, prospects, and tactics. Instead, he argues, we should be talking and thinking about buyers and buying processes. more
Can a video game help people make healthier food decisions? What about a dietician in the supermarket? A gaming expert recently joined the faculty of UConn to explore creating gaming environments that ultimately teach health prevention and improvement lessons. For the supermarket-based game, the player’s cart is measured and rated based on the degree to which it contains healthy food. For a perspective on how dieticians in supermarkets can help shoppers improve their health through better food choices, see this pdf from Black Belt Ray Stone. more
The path to purchase took a quick digital turn for me at Kohl’s last week when they didn't have the turtle-neck shirts in-store that I wanted. “Try using the kiosk,” the store associate suggested. I did– and I used the coupon that gave us 30% off all purchases that day – and the shipping was free. I felt pretty satisfied. But I wasn’t the only shopper with a problem that turned into a purchase thanks to the kiosk. more
About that mobile shopper touchpoint. Moving from retailer site to retailer site on a mobile device is a drag - but looking
across multiple retailers is part of the fun and sport of shopping. A new app called Flit claims to solve the problem by
giving shoppers access to over 1,000 stores in the same “place,” so to speak. Flit
is part of an ecommerce retail trend that aggregates offerings from different
retailers into “marketplaces” where shoppers can move among them easily, similar
to the way they do at a mall. more
The Westfield Group, a mall operator whose revenues exceed Google, has launched a laboratory in their downtown San Francisco mall to study how shoppers are using smartphones to merge on-line & off-line worlds as they shop. It’ a great test & learn response to the fast changes that retail is undergoing – and the most practical approach for any business these days, whether new or established. more
Will technology and ecommerce allow developing countries to skip the
big box store? Sanjeev Sanyal, a Global Strategist at Deutsche Bank,
argues that this is possible in India -- and that small stores will be
better equipped to compete with online sales than today's big boxes. He
writes in Project Syndicate: "We know from international experience that online shopping undermines
hypermarkets [big boxes like Super Walmart] more than neighborhood stores, which often offer . . ." more
Are Touchcodes a game changer? They won the top spot in the WSJ Innovation Awards
because the judges thought so. Instead of the QR code drill - pull up
your camera and snap a picture - with Touchcodes, simply touch your
screen to the printed piece and Voila! The touch connects you to an
offer, game, video, or any other online feature. more
You think Amazon or Facebook could never seriously compete for grocery
business? Nobody thought housing prices would fall before the meltdown,
either. Mike Spindler is running a fascinating thought experiment in a
series of blogs that explore these very possibilities at The Branded
Pantry. He imagines Amazon networking a series of Depots through
partnerships with existing retailers
like WaWa -- giving customers convenient access to a wider array of
merchandise and new reasons for "going to the store." Facebook, he says,
is a
natural for the "Health Through Better Lifestyle" market. more
Don't read this blog too quickly or you might miss the message. What Jon Bird is saying is that customers care a LOT about exercising their new power in the retail marketplace to get what they want, when they want it, and at a price they’re willing to pay. What customers don’t care about is whether it’s hard for any individual retailer to meet his or her needs, because there are plenty of other retailers standing in line to take care of them, if for some reason you can’t. more
Everyone is focused on finding ways to engage younger
shoppers, and this Coke vending machine in a South Korea seems to be doing a pretty
good job getting their attention. It's also distributing a bunch of free Coke, at
least to those who are willing to dance for it. You can watch the video at David Hill's Singularity Hub blog. more
We think Walmart’s To Go program
for same-day delivery is less about a direct competitive challenge to Amazon,
and more about the race to establish the right capabilities for success in 21st
century retailing. Despite the program’s limitations (it’s only available in
select markets and for select products) and even though Walmart characterizes
it as a response to Amazon, we think it significantly raises the bar for
everyone in retail. more
Retailers typically try to achieve hyper-localization by altering the assortment in specific stores, so Starbucks’ novel approach to localization caught our eye. They’re designing the exterior of a new wave of stores to reflect the materials, attitudes, and styles of the area where the store is located. This Fast Co article explains the program. The new stores are smaller, modular, factory-built and assembled on-site, but their exteriors vary. The façade of a Colorado store is clad in Wyoming snow fencing, for example. more
Toy 'R Us recently announced they will offer a service that
streams and downloads only family-oriented movies and TV shows. It’s a great
example of how retailers are tapping digital opportunities to enter new lines
of business that will grow sales and leverage existing customer relationships. It’s a pretty competitive market. Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Walmart are already
present, but Toys 'R Us is betting that shoppers will like the non-subscription
pricing structure, and that they’ll value the collection of exclusively
family-friendly movies. more
What would happen to shopping patterns if a major e-retailer
like Google, Amazon, or Facebook grabbed a big role in food marketing and
distribution? It would surely change the options for the “every household, every
week” grocery shopper – and the competitive landscape for retailers. BMC Black Belt Mike
Spindler explores these scenarios in a provocative series of blogs at The
Branded Pantry. More than creative speculation, they offer grounded foresight
into how the digital march to dominate groceries will play out. more
The new SoloHealth Station kiosks being installed in Sam’s
Club stores around the country are another expression of retail-based portals
into the health care system. The bilingual kiosks will provide free screening
for vision, blood pressure, weight, and body mass index – but beyond being a
symptom checker/health assessment, “it also helps connect consumers to local professionals
through their databases,” says Stone Hearth News, “helping people enter the
most appropriate and accurate point in the health care system.” more
It will be interesting to see how shoppers respond to Target’s tactic of putting QR codes on 20 of its top-selling toys this holiday season.
The QR codes enable shoppers to purchase the toy online while they are
in the store, and the strategy is aimed at heading off showrooming for
Amazon. Hmmm. In our experience, the most successful strategies
do a
good job meeting shopper needs vs. being a response to the
competition. more
A recent WSJ Market Watch article provides a clear look at the
somewhat messy reality of digital coupon deals. Paper coupons remain a tried
& true source of savings, but shoppers and brands alike are juggling
multiple web and mobile coupon platforms as well. Retailers and brands may
extend one set of offers on paper, another through their website, and yet
another on mobile apps like Shopkick. Organizing all this on a mobile phone can
be more difficult than paper coupons. more
Two recent initiatives could make both shoppers and retailers
more enthusiastic about using Square’s capabilities as a platform for faster,
easier, cheaper payment. They are about to show millions of shoppers how easy
Square is to use (since they’ll be processing all shopper credit card payments
at Starbucks), and they are cutting the cost of the service to retailers. The
two things happening simultaneously will undoubtedly accelerate adoption for
this new payment practice. Now we just have to see how much. more
The iFactor report published by the Intelligence Unit of The Economist is definitely worth a
read. It delivers a clear and well-documented picture of how shopper technology
use is driving retail innovation across Europe. The findings are based on a
survey of 300+ retailers in the UK, Italy, France and Russia, and in-depth
interviews with eight c-level executives. Retailers from
North America and other parts of the world can gain much from observing these efforts to respond to new shopper expectations. more
More and more commuters are seeing Peapod’s new shopping
boards at their train or subway stops.
This is part of Ahold’s larger strategy to grow their digital business.
While the idea of using a smartphone to shop while waiting is no longer
new, Peapod’s large-scale execution certainly is - they're rolling out virtual shelves
in Chicago, NYC, Boston, New Jersey, and Philly transit stations. Preliminary
indications show that both downloads of the app and sales are increasing
so it
appears to be working. Peapod’s expansion into new markets leads us to three
questions: more
It's the online forum we host about how technology its impacting the shopping experience.
Visit "What's New" to see the latest Lookouts, Blogs and Papers.
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BMC delivers the strategic insight and guidance that retailers, suppliers, and technology providers need to drive growth by better meeting shopper needs in today’s multi-channel environment.
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Toys ‘R Us joins a growing list of retailers who now accept in-store
payment for online orders. We think the shift signals a growing
awareness among retailers of how multi-channel the shopping experience has become. As more and more shoppers seek and expect a
blended experience, the boundaries between online and offline are softening. By accepting
in-store payment for online orders, retailers more
Shopkick’s redesign aims to capture the
couch-to-store loop of the path to purchase. The new focus on layout and color
aspires to extend the app’s footprint to include more pre-shopping browsing.
Gamification isn’t gone entirely, but it’s not as prominent as it once was. Sarah Lacey says “Why fix something
that wasn’t broken?” in her Pandodaily review. But we think Shopkick is just
leveraging their strength in creating intent motivation to better serve shoppers' needs by entering the path to
purchase before the store. more
The path to purchase in the supermarket increasingly includes smartphone use,
but WHO is using them is what caught our attention. The gap between
millennials and older shoppers is quite small, according to the study featured
in this Supermarket News article. Just 1% to 3% separated millenials from
shoppers ages 30 to 65 across a wide spectrum of activities. more
This weekend, Walgreens reached out to a major shopper touchpoint
with the introduction of their new Happy and Healthy Magazine in many
Sunday newspapers. Did you get yours? The glossy magazine will appear
twice a year, and it's heavy on “solutions” – both health and lifestyle -
for a wide variety of shoppers. We think this new retailer magazine is important to note for two reasons.
more
We need to look in different places to get a full picture of leading-edge retail innovation, as Tom Van Aman observed in our recent blog on change, so Shane Happach's Huffington Post story caught our eye. Latin American shoppers are enthusiastically embracing ecommerce, which means that the leading traditional retailers across Latin America will be competing aggressively for this new business so they can better serve their customers. more
We like how Charles Gold turns around the perspective on the path-to-purchase in this MENG blog. Gold says we focus too much on the internal - on sales processes, prospects, and tactics. Instead, he argues, we should be talking and thinking about buyers and buying processes. more
Can a video game help people make healthier food decisions? What about a dietician in the supermarket? A gaming expert recently joined the faculty of UConn to explore creating gaming environments that ultimately teach health prevention and improvement lessons. For the supermarket-based game, the player’s cart is measured and rated based on the degree to which it contains healthy food. For a perspective on how dieticians in supermarkets can help shoppers improve their health through better food choices, see this pdf from Black Belt Ray Stone. more
ath to purchase took a quick digital turn for me at Kohl’s last week when they didn't have the turtle-neck shirts in-store that I wanted. “Try using the kiosk,” the store associate suggested. I did– and I used the coupon that gave us 30% off all purchases that day – and the shipping was free. I felt pretty satisfied. But I wasn’t the only shopper with a problem that turned into a purchase thanks to the kiosk. more
About that mobile shopper touchpoint. Moving from retailer site to retailer site on a mobile device is a drag - but looking
across multiple retailers is part of the fun and sport of shopping. A new app called Flit claims to solve the problem by
giving shoppers access to over 1,000 stores in the same “place,” so to speak. Flit
is part of an ecommerce retail trend that aggregates offerings from different
retailers into “marketplaces” where shoppers can move among them easily, similar
to the way they do at a mall. more
The Westfield Group, a mall operator whose revenues exceed Google, has launched a laboratory in their downtown San Francisco mall to study how shoppers are using smartphones to merge on-line & off-line worlds as they shop. It’ a great test & learn response to the fast changes that retail is undergoing – and the most practical approach for any business these days, whether new or established. more
Will technology and ecommerce allow developing countries to skip the
big box store? Sanjeev Sanyal, a Global Strategist at Deutsche Bank,
argues that this is possible in India -- and that small stores will be
better equipped to compete with online sales than today's big boxes. He
writes in Project Syndicate: "We know from international experience that online shopping undermines
hypermarkets [big boxes like Super Walmart] more than neighborhood stores, which often offer . . ." more
Are Touchcodes a game changer? They won the top spot in the WSJ Innovation Awards
because the judges thought so. Instead of the QR code drill - pull up
your camera and snap a picture - with Touchcodes, simply touch your
screen to the printed piece and Voila! The touch connects you to an
offer, game, video, or any other online feature. more
You think Amazon or Facebook could never seriously compete for grocery
business? Nobody thought housing prices would fall before the meltdown,
either. Mike Spindler is running a fascinating thought experiment in a
series of blogs that explore these very possibilities at The Branded
Pantry. He imagines Amazon networking a series of Depots through
partnerships with existing retailers
like WaWa -- giving customers convenient access to a wider array of
merchandise and new reasons for "going to the store." Facebook, he says,
is a
natural for the "Health Through Better Lifestyle" market. more
Don't read this blog too quickly or you might miss the message. What Jon Bird is saying is that customers care a LOT about exercising their new power in the retail marketplace to get what they want, when they want it, and at a price they’re willing to pay. What customers don’t care about is whether it’s hard for any individual retailer to meet his or her needs, because there are plenty of other retailers standing in line to take care of them, if for some reason you can’t. more
Everyone is focused on finding ways to engage younger
shoppers, and this Coke vending machine in a South Korea seems to be doing a pretty
good job getting their attention. It's also distributing a bunch of free Coke, at
least to those who are willing to dance for it. You can watch the video at David Hill's Singularity Hub blog. more
We think Walmart’s To Go program
for same-day delivery is less about a direct competitive challenge to Amazon,
and more about the race to establish the right capabilities for success in 21st
century retailing. Despite the program’s limitations (it’s only available in
select markets and for select products) and even though Walmart characterizes
it as a response to Amazon, we think it significantly raises the bar for
everyone in retail. more
Retailers typically try to achieve hyper-localization by altering the assortment in specific stores, so Starbucks’ novel approach to localization caught our eye. They’re designing the exterior of a new wave of stores to reflect the materials, attitudes, and styles of the area where the store is located. This Fast Co article explains the program. The new stores are smaller, modular, factory-built and assembled on-site, but their exteriors vary. The façade of a Colorado store is clad in Wyoming snow fencing, for example. more
Toy 'R Us recently announced they will offer a service that
streams and downloads only family-oriented movies and TV shows. It’s a great
example of how retailers are tapping digital opportunities to enter new lines
of business that will grow sales and leverage existing customer relationships. It’s a pretty competitive market. Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Walmart are already
present, but Toys 'R Us is betting that shoppers will like the non-subscription
pricing structure, and that they’ll value the collection of exclusively
family-friendly movies. more
What would happen to shopping patterns if a major e-retailer
like Google, Amazon, or Facebook grabbed a big role in food marketing and
distribution? It would surely change the options for the “every household, every
week” grocery shopper – and the competitive landscape for retailers. BMC Black Belt Mike
Spindler explores these scenarios in a provocative series of blogs at The
Branded Pantry. More than creative speculation, they offer grounded foresight
into how the digital march to dominate groceries will play out. more
The new SoloHealth Station kiosks being installed in Sam’s
Club stores around the country are another expression of retail-based portals
into the health care system. The bilingual kiosks will provide free screening
for vision, blood pressure, weight, and body mass index – but beyond being a
symptom checker/health assessment, “it also helps connect consumers to local professionals
through their databases,” says Stone Hearth News, “helping people enter the
most appropriate and accurate point in the health care system.” more
It will be interesting to see how shoppers respond to Target’s tactic of putting QR codes on 20 of its top-selling toys this holiday season.
The QR codes enable shoppers to purchase the toy online while they are
in the store, and the strategy is aimed at heading off showrooming for
Amazon. Hmmm. In our experience, the most successful strategies
do a
good job meeting shopper needs vs. being a response to the
competition. more
A recent WSJ Market Watch article provides a clear look at the
somewhat messy reality of digital coupon deals. Paper coupons remain a tried
& true source of savings, but shoppers and brands alike are juggling
multiple web and mobile coupon platforms as well. Retailers and brands may
extend one set of offers on paper, another through their website, and yet
another on mobile apps like Shopkick. Organizing all this on a mobile phone can
be more difficult than paper coupons. more
Two recent initiatives could make both shoppers and retailers
more enthusiastic about using Square’s capabilities as a platform for faster,
easier, cheaper payment. They are about to show millions of shoppers how easy
Square is to use (since they’ll be processing all shopper credit card payments
at Starbucks), and they are cutting the cost of the service to retailers. The
two things happening simultaneously will undoubtedly accelerate adoption for
this new payment practice. Now we just have to see how much. more
The iFactor report published by the Intelligence Unit of The Economist is definitely worth a
read. It delivers a clear and well-documented picture of how shopper technology
use is driving retail innovation across Europe. The findings are based on a
survey of 300+ retailers in the UK, Italy, France and Russia, and in-depth
interviews with eight c-level executives. Retailers from
North America and other parts of the world can gain much from observing these efforts to respond to new shopper expectations. more
More and more commuters are seeing Peapod’s new shopping
boards at their train or subway stops.
This is part of Ahold’s larger strategy to grow their digital business.
While the idea of using a smartphone to shop while waiting is no longer
new, Peapod’s large-scale execution certainly is - they're rolling out virtual shelves
in Chicago, NYC, Boston, New Jersey, and Philly transit stations. Preliminary
indications show that both downloads of the app and sales are increasing
so it
appears to be working. Peapod’s expansion into new markets leads us to three
questions: more
It's the online forum we host about how technology its impacting the shopping experience. 
BMC delivers the strategic insight and guidance that retailers, suppliers, and technology providers need to drive growth by better meeting shopper needs in today’s multi-channel environment. 
