Category Archives: QR codes

Retail is detail – customer demands increase with new technology

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The least enjoyable part of most shopping experiences is queuing to pay. Once customers have made their selections they want to get out of the store as quickly and easily as possible. Some customers will even choose not to go to stores with long queues. In fact several retailers who cut the number of staffed checkouts to reduce costs have now reinstated them because their sales loses were greater than the cost savings. One solution to reducing queue sizes is self service checkouts however Read more [...]

Amazon and showrooming

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Amazon is becoming the source of product information used before shoppers actually buy in stores. The much talked about showrooming threat that most shoppers would go into stores to look at products and then order them on their mobile from Amazon, while in the store, has not come to pass. Certainly some shoppers use Amazon in store to gain more detailed product information but most end up actually buying in from the store. It could even be that the provision of product information in stores from Read more [...]

Making mobile apps work in stores

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Mobile will be an increasingly useful tool for many shoppers and retailers are right to invest in technology that will help shoppers and increase revenues. The challenge with any new technology is that it must work as expected by the shopper or they will simply stop using it. So every aspect of using a mobile needs to work smoothly. For many mobile applications once the software has been written and tested there is a good chance that it will work as expected every time. The one area that is Read more [...]

Omni-channel – bringing it alive in-store

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A new white paper has just been published that helps retailers create an Omni-channel environment in their stores. Most major retailers have already started to implement some form of Omni-channel strategy. Their objective is to enable their customers to consistently interact with them through all of the touch points in their purchasing journey, includes both on-line and off-line. This is a major task that will impact many parts of their business and take some time to fully implement so many retailers Read more [...]

Which technologies do shoppers really use?

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It's very easy to get excited about new technologies for shopping, particularly when they get a lot of press coverage.  It's also easy to get the impression that various new technologies are in more widespread use than they actually are. Shoppercentric It's therefore interesting to see what a study carried out by an independent source such as Shoppercentric has to report. They asked shoppers which access points they had used in the last month as part of their journeys to purchase.  Read more [...]

Smarter Promotions – The Top 8 features

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In my last blog I made the case for smarter promotions. This blog focuses on what smarter promotion tickets look like to shoppers at the key decision point - the shelf edge. Tickets that sell  The prime objective of a smarter promotion ticket at the shelf edge is to get shoppers to make a purchase that they would not otherwise make. Retailers who do this well convince shoppers to buy immediately by having the right added value information on their tickets. Most importantly smarter Read more [...]

Promotional tickets that sell

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As retailers move closer to an omnichannel strategy we need to see what more can be learnt from the eCommerce channel and applied at the shelf edge in stores. Of course ways to increase revenue and profitability are particularly interesting. One source of information about eCommerce is a benchmark report from RSR called eCommerce 2012.  In this report RSR identified what retailers thought were the top opportunities to increase eCommerce revenues. At the bottom of the list of opportunities Read more [...]

QR codes are NOT dead

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The demise of QR codes has been greatly exaggerated. Certainly some implementations of QR codes have added little value to customers and rightly gained negative publicity. It's a shame that the successful use of QR codes has not had the same amount of visibility. At Retail Bulletin's Multichannel conference on 1st February Schuh, Marks & Spencers and Halfords all said that QR codes was the most important technology for 2012. Tesco didn't go quite as far but did see them as a key way to access Read more [...]

Notes on RetailBulletin MultiChannel Conference Feb12

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Another excellent event put together by Retail Bulletin. The top message was that mobile is seen as the vehicle that linked together on-line and off-line channels and enables multichannel integration.  One speaker actually called mobile the saviour of bricks and mortar stores!  Other common themes were:  QR codes, trial things quickly, focus on customers, iPod & Pads and channel integration. Here are my notes on some individual speakers. Kenny Ball, IT Director, Schuh Major success Read more [...]