Consumer Collaborative Network

The retail market continues to transform based on demands and capabilities of the consumer and the consumer interaction with retailers and especially retail partners. These changes are buffeting the retail market in discontinuous waves of activities driven by the consumer as the consumer develops new social and technical capabilities.  Over the last few years these have been more focused in what I would call retail operational changes such as delivery methods or ordering capabilities and the foundation for the next wave of changes. The operational changes are delivered by technology capabilities while the next wave is being driven by the social aspect of shopping and purchasing which has a foundation in technology and the activities and effects are focused outside of the retail operational activities and focused on the retailer to consumer relationship through social activities.  

We seem to be between major technology retail developments and the focus now is on network connectivity from the retailer partners to the end consumer and all partners in between.  This time the change is related to culture within the retailer and the partners that support the retail marketplace. Consumers are still transforming their interaction and relationship to retailers and this transformation now is relational and focused on social interaction and capabilities.  These social interaction are the next logical step from consumers in the omni market retail transformation and bring together and highlight the social interaction that is an integral part of shopping for consumers.

Consumers have been using the social tools at hand for quite some time now in developing their virtual shopping practices and this has been manifested in the growth of sales through Facebook and Twitter.  You can see this manifested in the commercials for the consumer to consumer sales sites that have been on the rise recently. These sites provide a social foundation for the interaction among and across consumers to sell products that one consumer no longer requires or wants and another consumer needs, in essence a virtual garage sale and taking the legacy sites such as Craigslist to the next level.  This is the what I see as the next phase in the retail transformation.

Amazon has also staked a claim to the market of virtual garage sales through the Amazon services and has been very successful in providing an enhanced service.  Consumers will not wait for retailers to catch up or even accept new practices that benefit the consumer, consumers have shown this over and over again and the example I go back to is ‘window shopping’ where consumers shop physically in retail outlets and then search for best prices and purchase online.  This next wave of consumer social interaction is expanding now across consumers through the corners of retail and will quickly move across the marketplace through first adopters and this time with the collaborative network the first adopters may be retail partners unrelated to the sales of products but focused on services.  

This wave seems to be focused on services and how can the retail marketplace integrate the consumer services that enhance the consumer experience and simplify the shopping aspect of the retail experience.  The collaborative network provides the framework and the foundation for retailers to plug into the transformation and utilize partner services to support consumer demands efficiently and effectively. The retailer though must first recognize the need and then change their culture to embrace the partnership.