The importance of shareable experiences for retail
There is no shortage of articles talking about the disruption currently taking place in the retail space. Just this past weekend the New York Times wrote: Is American Retail at a Historic Tipping Point? With nine U.S. retailers filing for bankruptcy protection in the first three months of 2017 alone, one could certainly make this argument.
The obvious explanation is the shift to online shopping. Mobile spending now also makes up > 20% of total digital dollars spent. But you already knew that. Nothing new here. Perhaps less trite is one of the explanations that Derek Thompson offers up in this Atlantic article: Americans are spending less on material possessions and more on meals and experiences with friends.
Take a look at this FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) chart taken from the article:
According to Thompson, spending at “food services and drinking places” has grown twice as fast as all other retail spending since 2005. Americans now spend more money in bars and restaurants than they do in grocery stores. Last year was the first year that happened.
But the possible reason behind all of this is arguably the most interesting: young people are looking for ways to create great social media content. And going out for gluten-free dinners with friends and traveling to Tulum “with bae” are clearly far better fodder for that than scouring the sale racks at J.C. Penney.
Social media is redirecting discretionary income. This is our new reality. Whether you’re a city builder or a retailer, you must now ask yourself: How shareable is the experience that I am trying to create?
Retail Disruption is Here – See How the Internet of Everything is Changing Retail
It’s Friday, so let’s have some fun!!!!!! Let’s go shopping…..
About a week and a half ago I wrote about how the Internet of Everything (IoE) is transforming cities (click to see blog post How are Cities Being Transformed by the Internet of Everything?). Today we will look at how IoE is disrupting (in a good way) retail.
To win today’s digital customer, retailers need to provide hyper-relevant experiences, both in-store and out. The Internet of Everything (IoE) can help you gain a better understanding of individual customer behaviors and improve efficiency, savings, and engagement - in real time.
Let’s start with a 2 minute video by Cisco that explains how this is being done.
The next video (3 minutes) by Cisco will show us how Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences can help the retailer Detect, Connect, Engage and Grow.
So what are Cisco’s key insights into this disruption? According to a recently released survey by Cisco as published in the report Winning the New Digital Consumer with Hyper-Relevance In Retail, Insight Is Currency and Context Is King (source: http://www.cisco.com/web/offers/pdfs/ioe-retail-whitepaper.pdf as viewed on 7/24/15) they have identified the following:
As the Internet of Everything (IoE) drives exponential change — and opportunity — customers and retailers face a complex maze of shopping journeys.
Mobility and apps now represent a disruption similar in scope to what we saw with e-commerce in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In the second quarter of 2014, total discretionary retail spending rose 3 percent; e-commerce rose 10 percent; and mobile commerce rose 47 percent.
This sweeping digital transformation has dramatically changed the shopping behaviors of consumers. As a result, retailers need to forget everything they thought they knew about today’s consumer, including traditional customer segmentation — digital shopping behaviors now transcend traditional demographic parameters of age and income. For example, more than half of U.S. and U.K. shoppers use retailer-specific apps at least once per week.
Retailers have looked to address these digital demands by creating more channels (omnichannel). However, this has resulted in growing operational complexity for retailers and has not consistently achieved what consumers really desire: efficiency, savings, and engagement.
A Cisco study revealed that today’s consumers demand new kinds of digital experiences, both in-store and out. Above all, these shoppers seek a hyper-relevant experience — more so than a hyper-personalized one. Thirty-nine percent of respondents identified greater efficiency in the shopping process (e.g., ensuring items are in stock, speeding checkout times) as the area retailers most need to improve. By contrast, only 13 percent chose a more personalized shopping experience.
Retailers that build agile business processes to turn these insights into value can capture a profit improvement of 15.6 percent, according to Cisco Consulting Services.
For more information on these insights Click Here to get this report that was written by the following people:
Joseph Bradley, Vice President, IoE Global Practice, Cisco Consulting Services (LinkedIn Account)
James Macaulay (no information found)
Kathy O’Connell, Thought Leadership Director at Cisco (LinkedIn Account)
Kevin Delaney, Writer/Editor, Services Marketing, Thought Leadership Development Team at Cisco (LinkedIn Account)
Anabelle Pinto, Global Executive Director, Consumer Business Sector, Sports, Entertainment and Retail at Cisco (LinkedIn Account)
Joel Barbier, Director at Cisco Systems (LinkedIn Account)
Let’s wrap up today’s post with a 2 minute video that discusses the next wave of retail innovation created by Cisco in which the following people give their insights:
