Can Only Top-Tier Retailers Compete?

Figuring out the space for retailers that are not a part of the "super tier" as I have dubbed them, those retailers very good at physical retail and ecommerce and mobile and the digital experience, has been a question I've been interested in for some time.

The bankruptcy announcement by Barneys in New York is interesting to me for this analysis speaking to the competitors Barneys was dealing with:

Scale allows these competitors to invest significantly in long term growth initiatives around customer-facing elements like websites and store remodels, and infrastructure like robust supply chains.

Barneys was at about $800 Million while those competitors were at the Billions level.

I think there is a lot of space for B2B companies providing these services the Barneys of the world cannot afford on their own.

Read the whole story here:

https://www.retaildive.com/news/how-barneys-new-york-lost-its-cool/560356/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Mobile Payments Update

I've been following mobile payments since I worked in the field a few years ago.  It is interesting in a few ways but mostly because I view it as a leading indicator of overall digital transformation.

Paper money will never die but we are increasingly likely to have our phones with us while having no paper money.

The reason retailers want it is for the digital relationship it enables with their customers.  After all, money isn't broken so what is the real driver of adoption?  Buy 10 coffees at Starbucks and get the 11th for free, that's what is driving adoption.

Here is an update on the state of mobile payment adoption:

https://www.clickz.com/mobile-payments-2019-beyond/222602/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

IoT Connected Experience In Stores

The in-store shopping experience is going to continue to be more interactive.  Digital relationships are a must for the store of the future, happening today.

I first really jumped at this with BLE, bluetooth, interactions with smart phones and then smart watches.  That is still ongoing but there is a real opportunity to do it a different way and it appears Kroger is teaming up with Microsoft to do just that.

Read the story here:

https://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/news/microsoft-kroger-to-test-connected-experience-grocery-stores-in-pilot/

Here is the blurb that should catch your eye:

Store associates will also be able to use the technology to speed up curbside pickup and Kroger will use the Edge technology to sell digital advertising space to consumer packaged goods brands, according to the release.

Thank to a few of the folks previously from MCX who pointed this piece out on LinkedIn.  You know who you are.  :-)

What we absolutely know is the impact the great recession, combined with ever-improving store brand generics is having on traditional consumer packaged goods. During a recession shoppers cut back.  They try out the store brand version of whatever CPG widget or food stuff they think suits them.  The quality of these has increased dramatically over the decades and the average consumer likes it, then never goes back to the more expensive "name brand" version.  CPGs are desperate to get customers back and they have huge advertising dollars to work with.  Enter the Edge technology system.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

More on the Future of Retail

End of year articles can be a bit lazy.

Fill in the blank, this is what happened last year and this is what might happen next year.

Still, it is a good time to assess the current state of things.

This USA Today article on tech in retail is another good one.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/12/27/amazon-shopping-experience-makes-retailers-up-their-tech-game/2350988002/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD - Entry - 0256 Future of Retail

... is digital.

Best Reading of the Day

This is a great little article over at Forbes.com.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/12/27/four-keys-to-the-future-of-retail-in-2019/#5c1ed11b4d54

Here is a snippet from the piece:

There have always been two retail seasons in my mind: the holiday season and everything else. In fact, nearly 20% of all retail sales happen during the holiday season. That condensed period of sales is unique and often sheds some light on much larger consumer trends.

Taking into consideration this year’s holiday shopping data collected by my company, Salesforce, here’s a look at some of the major trends we might see play out in 2019.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Nike is Digital First

Need a new athletic shoe? 

Fan of Nikes?

Get connected.

They've become trailblazers really in their overall approach.  Digital first, mobile first, and leading brands toward the new engagement era.

For many customers the new funnel for the customer journey starts with the mobile app.  However, a potential sale can enter anywhere on the path and that is all enabled by a digital-first mindset.

Read more here:

https://www.retaildive.com/news/nike-execs-see-digital-as-the-majority-of-future-business/544975/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

eCommerce Native App or Hybrid Progressive?

I've had quite a few conversations this year around the question of when a company, retailer or manufacturer looking to go direct to consumers, should build a Native mobile app.

That isn't an easy question to answer.

The company culture comes in to play and the relationship the brand has with its customers.  If you just need a simple interface for online sales then why build a native app?  Mobile web is a great solution.

Then one app I've been using came to mind: Hamilton

Yes, the app for the Broadway musical.  For a while I was in that app every day as the lottery for shows in Boston was held every day.  I found myself doing lots of other things in the app and play around with it a bit even now that the show has moved on from Boston.  It occurred to me if they can get me in to their app every day then the opportunity exists for other brands to do the same.  If the relationship with their customers demands it.

Here is a little article on a different approach:

https://econsultancy.com/five-ecommerce-brands-success-progressive-web-apps/

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Essentially, PWAs [progressive web apps] are mobile apps that are delivered through the web. By using an app shell and pre-caching on a user’s phone, they can be added to the home screen and will load instantly.

Google states that 53% of users will abandon a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. As a result, the functionality of a PWA can simplify the online shopping experience, and even improve conversions.

Recently, we’ve seen a number of ecommerce brands capitalise on the technology.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Mobile Driving Retail

The trend is strong and continuing.  Mobile interactions with customers is increasingly at the heart of the digital relationship between retailers and their customers.

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Holiday sales are set to grow 13% this year over 2017, with mobile devices pushing 68% of e-commerce visits and 46% of orders, according to a new report from Salesforce. The cloud computing firm estimates artificial intelligence (AI)-based product recommendations will account for 35% of revenue.

Here is the full story:

https://www.retaildive.com/news/mobile-to-drive-68-of-holiday-e-commerce-traffic/532468/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD - Entry 0260 Strategy of Apple Pay

Best Reading of the Day

Mobile payments has been something very close to my professional activities for many years now. I've competed directly against Apple and their Apple Pay product.  Where are they headed now?

Here is a snippet from the piece:

There’s a reason everyone seems to be getting into mobile payments. Thanks to increasing smartphone usage and a push for faster, simpler, more secure financial transactions, mobile payments could become a $3.4 trillion industry by 2022. In the U.S. last year, eMarketer estimated it to be a $49 billion market already.

The consumer options are sundry: There’s Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay; PayPal, Venmo, Square, and Square Cash; bank-backed alternatives like Zelle and Chase Pay; and in-app options through things like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. As consumers abandon cash, checks, and even credit cards, everyone is jumping into mobile payments—but perhaps none with the zeal of Apple.

Here is the full story:

https://slate.com/technology/2018/07/apple-pay-can-apple-beat-paypal-venmo-in-mobile-payments-war.html

What do retailers think?

From the start the response was mixed.  Some feel any place their customer is at they want to be as well.  Another, however, stated their mix of credit to debit was such that if mobile pay, primarily funded with credit cards, caused that mix to flip it would be billions of dollars a year lost.  That is big time incentive to work in the space right (they are)?

This is one space with entrenched, well funded and organized interests, and tons of money at stake.  Apple won't see the players in this space fold like the music industry did.  I see this space continuing to be hyper-competitive for the foreseeable future.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Technological Future of Retail

It isn't often I see a tech journal site do an analysis like this where they step outside their comfort zone.

Fun fun.

For once a technology first site looks at what is happening in brick & mortar retail, rather than the other way around.  Worth the read though it points to a pending larger report from the team. I'll try to update this story with that report once it comes out.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-future-of-retail-4-trends-transforming-how-we-shop/

Here is a snippet from the piece:

1. Mobilized shopping

You can now walk into a store, find the product you want, then pull out your phone and order it from an app or a mobile site, and maybe even get same-day delivery. This raises the bar ...

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Virtual Store Obsession

First, let's get the notion of the so-called "retail apocalypse" out of the way.

The Unites States is over-saturated with physical retail and it is feeling gravity pull it back to earth. Also, a few brands that have failed to keep up with the times are going under (Sears won't last much longer as the CEO enriches himself with its brands).

However, there is a whole new opportunity for retail and there is a gold rush to get there.

Next up is the virtual online experience.  Enter the Obsessed.

Here is a snippet from the piece:

"You can't sell fashion and art the same way you sell toothpaste," says Neha Singh. "But on the internet, that's exactly what we do: Toothpaste is sold the same way as beautiful clothes."

Singh is the founder of Obsess, a new online shopping platform that seeks to reinvigorate what she describes as the "boring and tedious" business of online shopping. Singh hopes to usher in a new era of online retail, where currently, items are almost always presented as two-dimensional thumbnails on a uniform scroll-through grid.

Here is the full story:

http://www.businessinsider.com/neha-singh-obsess-google-amazon-experience-online-shopping-2018-6

I love stories like this for the multi-faceted aspect of it.  This is retail, it is technology, it is innovation, it is the customer experience, it is all of that and more.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Games for Kids and Retail

I love games.

I've been playing games my whole life.

The basics, of course, but I was also riding the wave of the digital revolution.  The first ever electronic games such as 'Electronic Detective' or 'Stop Thief!' that married the classic board game with a digital helper.

Oh, there is a remake of that beloved classic if you care.  It is excellent.  Take a look here:
https://restorationgames.com/stopthief/

Hasbro has been rolling with the punches for a long time now and they aren't slowing down.  Read this piece to find out the newest version of Monopoly.  Hint, it resulted directly from customer feedback on the original.

https://www.clickz.com/hasbro-evolves-alongside-customers/214732/

This is pure Participation Age stuff folks.  Everyone is responding to the customer's input for a brand.  Are you?

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

PS  Did I mention I'm being published?  My game will be available soon.  :-) Don't worry though, I won't be marketing it in here.

BRotD - Entry 0257 Modern Retail and Technology

Best Reading of the Day

This is a fine piece that attempts to explain how the best, tier 1, retailers are handling the challenges of the new connected world.

Retail in the Information Age would also be a fine title for this article.

I'm certain we will see all flavors of players.  Pure mobile, pure brick & mortar, pure eCommerce, and many combinations.  The top retailers must be all things to their customers and that's what we are seeing.  The very top is pulling away from the rest, almost creating a new top tier.  The Walmarts and Amazons of the world do it all very well.

Here is the story:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2018/05/08/taps-clicks-bricks-how-retail-giants-are-reinventing-commerce-via-mobile-desktop-stores/#7d921323c5ca

Here is a snippet from the piece:

“Customers move seamlessly between our stores, online, and mobile,” Home Depot's vice president of Online Pratt Vemana told me. “They’re using mobile within the store, and texting aisle location from their desktops to their phones.”

Home Depot is not the only one.

The term previously coined for this, maybe by folks at Forrester (?), is "Bricks & Mobile".  The author's "Taps, Clicks, Bricks" is also evocative of what is happening.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Awesome Retail Mobile App

Great little article by the folks over at ClickZ.

Want to know what a great mobile experience in retail is like when it isn't Starbucks?  Check it out.

Neiman Marcus, on the other hand, had two positive quarters in a row, citing the brand’s digital-first strategy as the catalyst for the turnaround.

In a way, Neiman Marcus’ app epitomizes that digital strategy, focusing more on where their customers are (online and offline, often at the same time) rather than where they used to be (the mall). We’ve mentioned some of its features before, but here’s a deeper dive into the app and what retailers can take away from it.

Here is the full article:

https://www.clickz.com/neiman-marcus-mobile-app/214155/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Experience Experimentation or Checkout Optimization?

Any time I read about a sophisticated experimentation effort to optimize some digital process or tool I get all starry eyed.

Yes, these are the things that keep me up at night wondering about the larger meaning.

The folks over at eConsultancy have another excellent entry that goes right down this rabbit hole.  Well worth the read:

https://econsultancy.com/blog/69447-ask-the-experts-conversion-rate-optimisation-trends-challenges-strategy/

Here is a snippet from the piece:

There is a divide taking place in the industry. The businesses at the strategic and transformative level of maturity don't even use the term CRO or conversion optimization. Experimentation is the mindset change they have adopted and made part of their DNA. Brands like Amazon, Skyscanner, Booking.com…

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Which Retailers are Mobile?

The advent of the smart phone has done two things that require retailers to respond: taken away some traffic from older internet sources, and opened a new type of opportunity for mobile interactions.

Initial offerings were essentially to offer the same online web experience but in mobile.  Going way back to the introduction of the first iPhone one of the enormous selling points was the ability to view the full New York Times website on your phone.

Wow!

Quickly the limitations of that experience became clear.  A tiny screen you hold in your hand requires a different approach from the interactions one has with a full PC screen.

A few retailers really really get that.  Here is a story on the best experiences:

http://www.mytotalretail.com/article/mobile-cx-study-gives-best-buy-home-depot-and-target-top-marks/

Here is a snippet from that piece:

As consumers spend more time shopping on smartphones, their expectations for mobile experiences have soared. With mobile interactions influencing $1.05 trillion in offline sales in 2016, the successful retailers of 2017 will be those that offer consumers mobile sites with a frictionless path to purchase that also integrates into omnichannel shopping experiences.

Which omnichannel retailers are doing it right and setting the bar the highest for merchants looking to deliver a seamless mobile customer experience (CX)?

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Payments - Is Fast ACH Good for Acquirers?

This week found me with 3 stories in payments that caught my eye.  Here is the first.

Automatic Clearing House or ACH is a way to move money.  Does making that faster help merchant acquirers?

Interesting read:

https://www.paymentssource.com/news/is-faster-ach-a-gold-mine-or-a-minefield-for-acquirers

Here is a snippet from the piece:

Same-day Automated Clearing House transactions exist, in part, as a first step in the faster payments initiatives taking place in the U.S. But are they lucrative enough for acquirers to add to their portfolio?

Even though ACH costs less than credit card interchange, the difference may not be compelling enough to win over merchants that are happy with cards and mobile wallets. But same-day ACH does have a devoted audience — delivering 13 million transactions in the last three months of 2016 — and a growing interest among government agencies and businesses.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

BRotD - Entry 0253 Next Generation Stores Today

Best Reading of the Day

Always remember, the folks who want to sell you something will often be willing to write studious analyses to help persuade you to but it.

With that in mind you really should read this, the best read of today, or the month really.

Forget everything we know or think we know about the retail store.  Given the technological shifts we've seen in recent decades with online, social, integrated fulfillment, seemless customer service through digital, mobile, and more, what should the store look like today.

Here is a snippet that provides one view:

Over the next three years, outdoor lifestyle apparel retailer Toad&Co. plans to open 20 new brick and mortar stores.

With news of store closings by powerhouse brands likely swirling around in your head, you may be tempted to make sure you read that number correctly. It’s been dizzying for sure. So why would an apparel retailer be looking to expand its brick and mortar footprint in this environment?

Santa Barbara, CA-based Toad&Co. lives by a simple truth: People enjoy shopping and being in the store, and still want that experience. They just don’t want it to be disconnected from the rest of their purchasing journey.

“We don’t believe brick and mortar is dying,” explained Kelly Milazzo, VP of operations for Toad&Co. ”But we do believe that the consumer expects, and will soon demand, a seamless interaction with the brand.”

Here is the full article:

http://www.chainstoreage.com/article/how-make-next-generation-store-right-now-store

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Amazon Acquires Whole Foods - What Does It Mean?

When the news broke that online retailer and all-around everything super-center Amazon was acquiring Whole Foods my instinct was to get straight to my blog.  I have thoughts on this, of course, but I also knew there would be a slew of industry leaders leaning in on this deal.  So I decided to wait a bit and gather the best articles in one place.

First, my thoughts.

Clearly Amazon wants to become more like Walmart as Walmart continues to try to be more like Amazon.

If I were to look in to the future of retail and how digital will ultimately impact it I think we'll see a new normal settled upon in the very near future.  Within that normal there will be room for all kinds of players so long as they define a clear space that differentiates them from others.  Pure online, pure mobile, pure physical retail, and everything in between will be the new reality.  The largest players will be heavy in physical AND digital, while smaller players will excel at only one or the other.

So Walmart might one day be 70/30 physical to digital and Amazon might become 30/70 physical to digital.  Something like that.  You'll still see the mom & pop shop on Main Street, and the little niche mobile-only player that gets the job done too.  Great time to be a customer huh?

The Food Marketing Institute back around 2012 was predicting roughly 10% of current Supermarket business would shift online.  Most of that, 80%, would be taken from packaged center store goods that were easily shipped and often good targets for subscription models (such as diapers).  Don't see any reason this prediction was off and that means big changes for Supermarkets across the country.  They are suddenly too large for their needs.  We should see stores removing aisles to make room for more fresh and prepared in-store options.  Combined with a robust digital presence the best Supermarket chains will survive and thrive (Wegmans).

Now to it and there is a lot of reading for you should you choose to do so.

RIS weighs in with their slew of experts:
https://risnews.com/experts-weigh-amazon-snatches-organic-grocer-whole-foods-137-billion

Re/Code tell you how to keep Amazon from swallowing your business too:
https://www.recode.net/2017/6/19/15832958/amazon-whole-foods-jeff-bezos-acquisition-aws-vendor-tips-cloud-open-source

RetailDive tells us how the war between Amazon and Walmart is accelerating:
http://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-vs-walmart-why-the-whole-foods-deal-escalates-the-war-for-the-amer/445294/

Bloomberg tells us Amazon is after every single thing you buy (which is exactly what Walmart is after by the way):
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-20/amazon-s-real-target-isn-t-whole-foods-it-s-everything-you-buy

Digital Transactions tells us why Amazon is changing the checkout (payment) process with this acquisition:
http://www.digitaltransactions.net/news/story/With-Its-Deal-for-Whole-Foods_-Amazon-Could-Usher-in-Seismic-Change-for-the-Checkout

Business Insider is always a good read and they say Walmart and Kroger (supermarket) should be terrified by this deal:
http://www.businessinsider.com/amazons-whole-foods-acquisition-should-terrify-walmart-kroger-2017-6

Finally the NRF (National Retail Federation) tells us the retail reinvention is just getting started but also cautions against the belief that traditional retail is imploding (correct):
https://nrf.com/news/retails-reinvention-story-is-just-getting-started

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant

Target to Incorporate Cartwheel in to their Core App

Bye bye Cartwheel.

If you aren't familiar with it, and shop at Target, you should be.  This great little experiment really opened up Target as a leader in digital interactions with customers, especially in-store.  I've also spent some time with the Cartwheel team and can say they are passionate about what they do, and do it well.

Well enough it is time to pull it up to the mothership.

Target is pulling Cartwheel in to the main Target App and will sunset Cartwheel as a stand-alone.  This was inevitable if Cartwheel were a success so I'm sure this is bitter sweet for the team.  Better for the average Target customer, to be sure.

Read on:

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/09/target-and-cartwheel-apps-to-merge-starting-this-summer-mobile-payments-and-improved-maps-to-follow/

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant