Retail Innovation

Online and Offline Retailing

davidchinn — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:00:20 +0000

An article in The New York Times titled “Unboxed, A Data Explosion Remakes Retail” by Steve Lohr caught my eye with a fantastic example of a retailer using a cleaver online idea to drive sales instore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/business/03unboxed.html?em

The retailer is US company called Wet Seal, they have 500+ stores and sell fast fashion mostly to female teens.

They have created a web feature called “My Boutique” where users can create outfits from their stock keep them in their own online closet and also post them online. Other users can then search through the posted outfits, review them, post comments and view top rated outfits. They have so far had over 300,000 posted outfits.

They have also broadened the offer to an iPhone application called iRunway that can be used instore to search user-generated outfits from specific garments instore.

For my mind this one of the best examples of a retailer linking online and offline retail in a strategy that not only drives sales through both channels, but improves the shopper experience and provides a gold mine of customer intelligence through user-generated content.

10 reasons to care about the shopper

davidchinn — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:45:49 +0000

I read a piece in retailwire titled: Ten reasons you should care about the shopper by Joel Rubinson http://www.retailwire.com/Discussions/Sngl_Discussion.cfm/13892

The article looks at the why shopper insights are important to today’s marketer or retailer.

Notable points for my mind:

Fifty percent or more of product and brand decisions are made in-store.
The mind set of a shopper is different, it action and decision focused. In-store promotion needs to take this into account.
Shopper insights and consumer insights are different things. Consumer insights study preferences; shopper insights study how people put preferences into action.

Traffic measurement for multichannel retailing

davidchinn — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:03:56 +0000

An article published by Experian FootFall and Hitwise outlining best practice for measuring traffic on and off line.

http://www.etailtoday.com.au/Articles/tabid/54/Latest/128/Measurement-for-multichannels.aspx

New report identifies the UK’s post-recession ‘bounce-back consumer’

davidchinn — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:47:30 +0000

The latest Experian Insight Report shows that the post recession consumer has drastically different spending behaviour.

▪ Over 40% of consumers believe companies are not fair to customers

▪ More than 80% of consumers are ‘increasingly aware’ of prices, but that doesn’t mean going downmarket

▪ Keen pricing, rewarding loyalty and customer service – not just lip service – will be key to winning the fight for the bounce-back consumer post-recession

For the full article http://experian.global-pressoffice.com/documents/showdoc.cfm?doc=3519

On-line vs In-store

davidchinn — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:28:58 +0000

I read an article in retailwire titled “Its time for retailers to transform their stores”

http://www.retailwire.com/Discussions/Sngl_Discussion.cfm/13606#poll

The author Natt Fry looks into why on-line sales are outpacing in-store sales from a growth and customer satisfaction perspective.

Her big four reasons for this trend were:

1) Rapid product and price comparisons available on-line

2) Growing public comfort with on-line security and overall convenience

3) Increased access to the internet

4) Superior analytics and consumer insights that can be derived from e-commerce allow for more targeted offerings

These are clearly the strengths of e-commerce – the question is what can traditional bricks and mortar retailer do to level the trend?

The answer must be differentiation. In-store retail has something the web can never offer which is the ability for the consumer to interact with your products and the opportunity for sales people offer value to the client at the point of purchase.