Archive for March, 2012

Highlights from Internet Retailing Expo 2012

On 21st March we headed to the Internet Retailing Expo at the Birmingham NEC with an aim to engage with those embracing multichannel commerce and digital revenue streams in the world of retail.  IRX aims to show the ‘whole gamut of multichannel retail’ and attracts top-level retailers and digital players from all over the UK.

There was an air of confidence, almost revolution, among the speakers and delegates.  E-commerce practitioners have been growing in stature within their organisations and are now clearly pressing for internal changes to the way their businesses work.  There were plenty of references to buyers who know it all, slow-moving IT departments and marketing departments still obsessed with traditional advertising.

The talks were well attended and on the whole invigorating. A few selected highlights from our time there included:

1.     John Bovill from Jacques Vert giving a very lucid presentation on the challenges facing e-tailers today.    He talked about the need to go from multi-channel to cross-channel; in other words, focus on the consistency and quality of the consumer experience across all your touchpoints. He also highlighted the importance of product availability and how a more coordinated interplay between stores and digital channels can help retailers strike the right balance between lost sales and excessive stock needing discounting.

2.   Jo Stanford, IT Director at De Vere Hotels, talked about the long-term strategy that underpins the work Vexed Digital have been undertaking over the last few years. The focus has been on building a technical platform that can support their diverse portfolio of brands, while also enabling De Vere to adapt to new and emerging platforms such as mobile to expand their service offering.
3.    A leading English Football Club presented on how they have driven sales very successfully through customised products via Facebook such as signed programmes and bespoke merchandise. Thus demonstrating how approaching f-commerce is very different to that through more traditional online channels

4. We also caught up with tesco.com who were present to demonstrate some of the innovation they have undertaken with Augmented Reality.  As well as spearheading an AR campaign in Korea which has inspired a wave of copies they told us about how they have substantially increased sales of DVD and game titles through offering video playback when the physical product was held up to in store webcams.

5. Finally a shout out to Tom Allason from Shutl. The Shoreditch-based startup are looking at disrupting the delivery market by aggregating smaller, point-to-point delivery companies. The result is appealing scenario of online/mobile customers receiving their treasured new goods within the hour… a bit like Domino’s Pizza, but for dry goods.  Tom gave a spirited presentation and they have live services to point to – the challenge will be in maintaining a high standard of service among the disparate delivery companies as Shutl expand.
All in all it was an informative day and vindicated the view that the world of e-commerce is becoming ever more fragmented. Now more than ever its imperative to understand a consumer’s preference in terms of new channel adoption and ensure they are catered for wherever they reside.

Read the rest of this entry Posted on 29/03/12 at 11:50 No Comments »

7 UK Brands Making Their Mark with Multichannel

A multichannel campaign is critical in today’s digitally revolutionized retail environment.  Multichannel means brands can effectively reach their customers wherever it suits them; making brands relationships stronger with their audience and ultimately increasing profit and success.  We list 7 UK brands forging ahead with multichannel campaigns now:

Oasis

Oasis announced last week that they were incorporating iPad m-commerce into their bricks and mortar stores after a trial in their London flagship proved a success, resulting in 20% of sales in its first week.  Oasis’ MD, Liz Evans, says of multichannel strategy on and offline: “Customers now demand more from physical stores: more excitement, outstanding service and a more personalised experience driven by new technology”.  iPads now outnumber traditional pay point tills in their stores, providing online information and browsing of products for both customers and staff, taking the in-store experience to the same level as that of shopping online.   The company was just announced as one of the top 5 companies globally who are excelling in multichannel, because of their strong mobile offering and integrated customer journey on and offline.

Mamas and Papas

Mamas and Papas has cleverly targeted a new breed of technologically empowered busy parents ‘on the go’ with a new multichannel strategy that extends their ecommerce capabilities across mobile devise and other channels, including F-commerce.

Thorntons

The chocolatier has undertaken a rebalancing strategy of late, cleverly putting multichannel at the fore of their plans and focusing on an ecommerce site in place of store closures to increase profit and secure their future success.

Morrisons & Kiddicare

The grocery retailer acquired children’s ecommerce retailer Kiddicare last year and has been integrating the bricks and mortar of their own offering with their newly acquired company’s digital model of apps, ecommerce and kiosks to create a multichannel model across both brands.

Debenhams

This UK department store is securing their place on the high street with an astute multi-channel strategy.  Debenhams now offers “click and collect”, where shoppers can order on the store’s ecommerce site and then collect in-store and QR labels in-store which show customers an online store to get more information or make a purchase on their smartphone.  These strategies show how online and offline can be merged to increase conversion and make the shopping experience more effective and helpful for customers.

John Lewis Partnership

John Lewis has built up a great reputation as one retailer doing multichannel exceedingly well.  They’ve done this by offering Click-to-Collect services where customers can order items online and the collect in-store as well as a bespoke store designed to simulate the online shopping experience which will be the prototype of future stores due to be rolled out across the UK.

LK Bennett

LK Bennett have been quietly forging ahead a multichannel strategy and initiatives such as integrated online and in-store returns, apps and an excellent ecommerce site which uses ‘hotspotting’ and 360 degree views of their products online have helped the company to achieve a 17% rise in profits this year compared to 2011.

Read the rest of this entry Posted on 28/03/12 at 11:57 No Comments »

Multichannel and AR Trending for Brands

Internet Retailing & Multichannel

Today Richard Davies and Sergio Falletti are up in Birmingham for the Internet Retailing Expo which is showcasing the current need for multichannel selling in retail.  Read Sergio’s first in a series of blogposts about multichannel and expect a post on the highlights of today’s trip coming soon.

Augmented Reality Success is Trending

Brands are showing interest in a technology trend that could provide extra va va voom to campaigns, as well as future revemue streams; AR or Augemented Reality.  As reported in NMA brands such as Debenhams, Top Gear and Clarkes are all seeing spikes in engagment and profit when employing AR into campaign.

Top Gear integrated AR into their previous print editions and has since seen “tens of thousands” of video views, according to publisher Simon Carrington. “Research has shown us that 50% of our readership has access to smartphones and one in four of those [27%] engaged with the video content, and that was just from the first two editions,” he said.

What’s more is AR is seen as the better, more sophisticated technology trend to engage customers when compared to the QR code craze which has since been mocked for its ineffectual usage; Carrington adds “We’ve all tried QR codes and they are a bit clunky, whereas this allows us to create the same effect much more easily,” he said.

Other brands incorporating  AR into their campaigns include department store Debenhams, sports brand Reebok and shoe retailer Clarks in a move towards online and offline multichannel strategies, all with some degree of measurable success.  Debenhams saw a 300% rise in sales for a lingerie range promoted using AR, Debenhams social media manager Ruth Leach saying “We are seeing a real ROI from using it and it is a really effective way of bringing print ads to life by capitalising on our digital assets,” she said. “We’ll definitely use it for future campaigns.”

Read the rest of this entry Posted on 21/03/12 at 16:43 No Comments »

The Changing World of Multichannel Retail

It may just be the aftermath of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but all the talk seems to be about mobile commerce:

  • eBay/Paypal expecting to process $7bn worth of mobile transactions in 2012;
  • Facebook becoming involved in mobile payments;
  • UK retailers seeing mobile grow to over 5% of their digital revenue;
  • Our very own client Domino’s Pizza reporting over £10m in sales from iPhone alone.

Such enthusiasm is hardly surprising given the numbers involved. We are however even more excited about how it all fits in the wider picture of multichannel retail.

The Packaged Internet

We have entered the era of a “packaged internet” – one where apps, smart TVs, tablets, e-readers, gaming devices and other emerging platforms are eroding the dominance of the destination site. Indeed social networks have effectively created new channels within the open web itself.

For retailers, this rapid fragmentation of digital channels has  accelerated the need for re-defining their multichannel strategy. What should that strategy include?

1 – Go where the customer is. Brands must be prepared to address each of these individual channels in turn, taking their product to the consumer rather than a continued reliance on the user finding them. If they don’t then you can guarantee someone else’s brand will do.

2- All touch points must be considered as a whole. Customers expect the same experience as they flip between channels and devices. In the case of mobile alone there have been too many ’rush to market’ efforts that have left retailers with disconnected and under functioning apps. They will frustrate consumers whilst at the same time draining marketing budgets.

3 – Connect online and offline. 2012 is the year when smartphone owners, at least in the US, will go over 50% , and vitally 77% put their phone to use while shopping.  It is time for the ‘connected consumer’ - people using their devices to augment their shopping experience, from price comparison and suggestions to purchase validation through their social networks.  As a result we are at last developing a direct link between the online and offline worlds leading to a better understanding of the customer as a whole, enabling the retailer to enhance the in-store experience and ultimately increasing conversion rates.  The more the gap between digital channels and in-store understanding narrows, the bigger the opportunity for the retailer – especially as 90% of purchases are still made at bricks and mortar stores.

Make the most of mobile

In summary whilst all the talk currently is around mobile commerce, there is a bigger opportunity out there for those willing to encompass a broader approach to multichannel. Newcomers and established players alike should use the momentum behind mobile retail to develop a fuller more integrated multichannel strategy.

In particular:

  • Optimum solutions require better APIs – a thankless task in the short term but one that will nevertheless reward in the longer term, as new platforms emerge and commerce becomes more distributed;
  • Mobile sits nicely between off and on-line – it offers a great opportunity to create a more seamless experience for consumers and ensures in-store becomes a major part of the multichannel approach;
  • Don’t be afraid to fail. Trialling new devices or platforms might not bring the commercial results anticipated, but they deliver invaluable learnings for the future.

Future Platforms strongly believe that retailers and e-tailers alike should be planning to execute effectively across all channels, looking for ease and consistency as their customers switch from one to the other.

We have been applying this approach to Domino’s Pizza since 2006, working across their e-commerce site, social media, in-store kiosks and more recently mobile.

The results speak for themselves: online sales at £183.1m, over half of Domino’s overall sales and up 43% from the previous year, with 13% of digital sales coming from mobile and tablets alone.

by

Read the rest of this entry Posted on 20/03/12 at 15:59 No Comments »

A week @ Mobile World Congress 2012

Another year, another Mobile World Congress closing its gates.

For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure of attending this once-a-year mobile industry meet-up, you should know that it is so huge that the best way of really hearing what’s going on is to follow it online.  No point in walking miles to hit all the stands.

The point of being here is that you get to catch up with the rest of the industry around the Fira, at fringe events and at the parties around town (Helen Keagan’s Swedish Beers above all). So what were people talking about?

Mobile payments struck a chord.  Facebook’s announcement that they want to solve the mobile payments problem was the main highlight: app stores will continue to have the upper hand when it comes to micropayments until there are alternatives that are global and just as seamless.

Paypal joined in,with their own declaration of intent. They also added a data point: they are expecting $7bn worth of mobile payments in 2012.

While the big guns try and solve a problem that should have been sorted ages ago, the mobile industry is already setting the next challenge: NFC payments. Visa announced their partnership with Samsung for the Olympics and with Vodafone for the Vodafone Mobile Wallet.  It feels like it is just the beginning – surely device fragmentation will step in and hold back full rollout for a few years.

I may have been talking to the wrong people, but the Html5 vs. Native debate seems to have become more rational.  Facebook, again, brought it into light by announcing their involvement in Html standards evolution – effectively recognition of the fact that Html5 is still short of the build-once-deploy-everywhere promise – something we have talked about a lot.  It is still the future though, and the Telefonica+Mozilla partnership shows that powerful players are behind it.

I didn’t really look at many devices. Every year needs a tech first, and I would give that to the Galaxy Beam – mobiles with projectors have been promised for years and it’s good to see someone mad enough to make it happen. On the downside, I didn’t hear many positive comments about the award-winning Nokia 808 PureView – is a 41MP camera more likely to beat the iPhone than a projector beam?

The one theme that stood out when looking at devices was the idea of cross-media / cross-platformexperiences. Sony were showing off multiplayer gaming with console vs. smartphone, Microsoft showed a preview of Windows 8 seamlessly working across devices and there was a lot of talk about 2nd-screen experiences. Designing and executing these kind of experiences is probably the most exciting challenge in our industry.

Last but not least – the OS war. Apple were not here, as usual. Still odd, given that they currently define where the mobile industry is at, in terms of audience and revenue. They at least organized a party and were (possibly) bothered enough to time their iPad3 pre-announcement with Eric Schmidt’s keynote. Android was everywhere – again, no surprise there. I think that Nokia & Microsoft did well out of it: they have a good product, Skype is now on WP7 (beta), they get some sympathy for the mountain they have to climb, and Windows 8 impressed everyone.

by Sergio Falletti

Read the rest of this entry Posted on 05/03/12 at 17:20 No Comments »

Innovation, Innovation, Innovation

Fashion & Retail Are Ramping Up Digital Innovation

Ever since this Tesco Korea virtual store promotion all eyes have been on retail for the next dazzling digital showcase of innovation.  Tesco built on their augmented reality success this week with the launch of a Facebook-Based Virtual Fitting Room that ticks the box of every current digital marketing trend.

Women’s magazine Glamour undertook a similar campaign at London Fashion Week when they created a Fashion-Orientated QR code ‘Shoppable’ wall.  This year’s LFW not only showcased trends for clothing and beauty this year but was a tour de force of how the Fashion, Beauty and Retail industries are pushing forward with innovative ways of selling and promoting goods via various digital channels.  Amongst other brands excelling in this arena were Burberry’s interactive, panoramic catwalk finale livestream of their catwalk show, which used motion reactive technology allowing viewers to view each look in 360 degrees. #Burberry is also now the world’s most followed brand on Twitter, their Twitter & Instagram catwalk previews -which saw the brand to trend globally two seasons in a row- have set the tone for other fashion brands and houses looking to stay on trend in every way.

Mobile World Congress

So far, so much to report on from Barcelona’s premier global summit for all things Mobile this week.  Our Client Service Director at Future Platforms, Sergio Falletti, is out there at the moment.  Eric Schmidt’s annual keynote speech proved a hot ticket, where his message was one of a bright future for mobile as a platform for empowerment for communities and the individual.  Schmidt touched on political themes and spoke out against the mounting legislation that threatens web innovation and praised technology and mobile as a means to facilitate political change; “In times of war and suffering, it will be impossible to ignore the voices that cry out for help”.

Read the rest of this entry Posted on 01/03/12 at 17:57 No Comments »