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Thoughts from the Floor of NRF’s Big Show 2012

By Keith Anderson on January 19, 2012 in Innovators, Mobile, Online-Offline Integration, Social

I made a quick trip to the Expo floor of NRF’s Big Show earlier this week. I didn’t attend any of the presentations or speak with every vendor, but I did notice some themes worth sharing.

Online-offline integration is still mostly a buzzword. If there was one phrase or idea I saw referred to the most, it was the idea of “seamless, connected experiences,” omni-channel retailing, and “channel convergence.” But none of the slick brochures I took home had a clear roadmap for what that really means.

There were references to QR codes, wishlists, the semantic web, NFC mobile payments, and many other well-hyped technologies. But very little substance around the implications for strategy, structure, metrics, policies, and capabilities that “omni-channel” will require.

Granted, the audience at this show tends to be technical, so perhaps I shouldn’t expect clarity on the business questions retailers are facing. But the roadblocks are business problems, not technical for most retailers trying to go omni-channel, however they’ve defined it.

Consumer tech is still winning the arms race vs. “enterprise” tech. One of the reasons the last 36 months have been so transformational is that, for the first time, shoppers have more powerful (and usable) technology than retailers and their associates have.

I don’t think that point is lost on retailers, but they still seem to be clutching to the hope that shoppers will settle for an experience in their stores that doesn’t live up to the expectations set by their iPhones and iPads.

For example, there were a few gesture-based UIs that were billed as proofs of concept. As a live instructor explained how to use the touch-free virtual mirror, it took one gentleman about a minute to select “Male” as his gender.

Of course, the technology will improve. But I came looking for compelling examples of experiences that will get people to visit, shop, and buy in stores–and I didn’t see anything breakthrough.

Fewer retailers should be asking “What can we do with new technologies?” and more should be asking “How will we solve a major problem our shoppers have?”

If it isn’t faster, easier, cheaper, more fun, or more personal than what they’re used to, shoppers won’t bite.

Watson vs. Siri — a retail showdown? Having just given the advantage to consumer technology, I may have to make an exception.

When the iPhone 4S launched, I was hopeful that Siri would have some interesting retail applications. I still believe that speak-to-list and voice UI in general will be a big deal for retail, but I’ve been underwhelmed with Siri’s first-gen retail applications.

IBM showcased its Watson technology at the show, and my interest was rekindled. Watson, you may recall, beat three humans at Jeopardy last year by parsing natural language answers and scouring databases of structured and unstructured data.

The retail applications of the technology could deliver the benefits of e-commerce and big data with a more natural interface.

Shoppers could ask for help finding items, gift suggestions, product info, and much more just by speaking (or typing) their query. Simplifying the input/output might lead more shoppers to use the technology in more environments–especially the store.

MPOS & mobile payments are a noisy, noisy space. Our sister blog InStoreTrends did a nice job enumerating the various flavors of mobile checkout in these recent posts [1] [2]. What surprised me about this year’s show is just how many players are throwing their names in the hat. I counted at least a dozen POS system vendors with MPOS solutions ranging from proprietary devices to peripherals for smartphones to smartphone-only apps.

I saw Modiv, AisleBuyer, and GlobalBay, but a few key players like Paypal and Isis were absent, and Google de-emphasized Google Wallet as part of its broader Commerce suite (Catalogs, Shopper, Commerce Search, Offers, Product Search).

I expect a pretty serious shakeout over the next 24 months as it becomes clearer which approaches shoppers prefer and which solution providers’ economics make sense for all parties.

On the broader mobile app side, there was very little representation. I suspect this is because mobile apps tend to be purchased by retailers’ Marketing departments more frequently than IT, which seems to be the core of the Big Show’s attendees.

From price optimization to price personalization? I skipped last year’s Big Show in lieu of the Consumer Electronics Show. But at the 2010 show I attended, price optimization tools (sophisticated software that enables demand-based pricing by store/store cluster and SKU) had a huge presence. DemandTec, KSS Retail, and Revionics were all swarming with interest, and the space seemed pretty hot.

Since then, IBM bought DemandTec, dunnhummby bought KSS Retail, and Revionics is still cranking. Our analysis concludes that a majority of retailers in some channels (e.g. Grocery) are now experienced users of price optimization tools.

But the conversation seems to have moved past pricing at the store-level to 1:1 pricing, either through personalized offers or through tiered loyalty programs.

In this new era of price transparency, even more targeted pricing based on individual or household behavior, lifetime value, social influence, and more is likely to be the next frontier.

RFID is getting a second shot. Speaking of hype, five years ago, RFID was billed as retail’s Next Big Thing. But early results couldn’t justify the cost and complexity, and a few high-profile initiatives fizzled out.

But item-level RFID tagging for the sake of improved inventory management and display execution might be gradually picking up steam. One vendor told me that a major department store chain already uses RFID tags for 100% of private label SKUs in certain categories/departments, and that the chain is leaning on vendors to start doing the same. The benefit is that the retailer can efficiently count the inventory in those departments (increasing how frequently they can check inventory) and see where in the building it is.

I’m not sure how quickly others will follow, but RFID does seem to be getting traction slowly and steadily.

Social media… maybe next year? Given that the NRF just released its Social Retailing Blueprint, I thought I might see and hear more about social at the Big Show. The event organizers did a nice job integrating social media into the event itself, but on my walk of the floor, I only noticed IBM and Dell talking up social media solutions.

Again, could be a function of the expected audience at this particular event, but I was surprised not to see many more of the social media management / social commerce / social listening & analytics vendors represented.

 

Fonte: Abras/Retail Net Group