Transition Legacy Framework to Digital Enablement

There has been much talk about ‘getting back to normal’ and ‘new normal’ that I have been thinking quite a bit about because of the continued cycles of lockdowns and now the latest pandemic surge. These disruptions on personal lives are also impacting the business world from a loss of jobs and business closing to the continued work from home requirements. It is past that time now to accept the new reality (I refuse to call it ‘new normal’!), if you haven’t already and take the appropriate steps to live in this new reality. We are already seeing the results of change and we really need to focus now on developing and executing a digital enablement strategy. The pandemic has driven change due to health and safety concerns and these changes themselve are driving the digital transformation. This transformation is beginning to increase in velocity as consumers accept and become accustomed to the new reality and we will never go back.


Any business that directly interacts with the consumer, retail - services, restaurants, for instance, have borne the brunt of the pandemic disruptions to the point of breaking and many have been pushed past that point to failure. Consumers have changed the retail and services markets forever through digital interactions that are redefining the consumer relationship. The changes to the market are not really new, but simply and more accurately, sped up dramatically in a natural progression that has been pushed to the limit by the pandemic. The change here is the ability of consumers to shop, and more importantly, to obtain goods and services without contact, whether eCommerce and delivered to their home or via curb-side pick-up.


Retailers must now take a multi-prong approach to their digital enablement activities; they must focus on a strategy that first defines and then delivers the digital enablement while they also focus on immediate response to the waves of disruption driven in many cases from the COVID-19 transition support requirements. This is difficult for all businesses and especially difficult for the legacy retailer that was already struggling with digital enablement before the pandemic. The change and disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed digital enablement past the tipping point though and this has now suddenly become a key to survival rather than a progressive transition. Now that this genie is out of the bottle there is no going back. It is now a matter of great urgency to define and implement a digital enablement strategy.


This will be an overwhelming task if the legacy retailers treat this as ‘business as usual’ because there just is no time for them to slow-walk the changes through the organization. If the legacy retailers treat this time of disruption the same as other changes in the market they will be left in the ditch, smouldering. This requires quick actions to move forward without an idea of the end result. At this point we don’t have any idea what the end will look like because the end is being defined and redefined through waves of disruption.


These retailers must implement a strategy of continuous change. They must build a flexible framework that is able to sense and then respond to the disruption. This will require a strategy of digital enablement to be able to sense the disruption and quickly respond. Unfortunately these same legacy retailers are also struggling with labeling applications and cumbersome integration between internal applications and their external partners. The first order of business is to build a flexible framework that will support the velocity of change, while also responding to disruption.


In addition to the above, these legacy retailers do not have the time to figure this out, they must act quickly. Fortunately there are two opportunities for retailers to incorporate in order to survive; consultant organizations to help with the strategy implementation and RPA tools to help bridge the digital enablement between legacy applications and partners. The first step is recognition and the support of senior leadership. This is a huge undertaking and requires a great deal of support from many different areas to succeed and this will require support over time to fail and correct direction. Without full throated support from senior leadership this will only end in failure.


Tom Brouillette

Contact: tbrouillette@ncspartners.com

@ncspartners


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Tom Brouillette discusses supply chain trends and provides strategic business & technology advice to his followers and companies.

Social Network Impact On Retail

Consumers are using social networking tools and and information to support their shopping and purchasing practices in ways that change and expand on such a frequent basis that it is impossible for retailers to react and control.  Consumers have embraced these social networking tools in every aspect of their lifestyle and retail shopping and purchasing is no different.  Consumers use their social network in addition to the new eCommerce shopping capabilities introduced by Amazon to publish reviews and allow consumers to ask specific questions of other shoppers and previous purchasers of products.  With the expansion of location and subject specific advertising and third party shopping apps consumers have been able to create a virtual shopping mall that enhances their shopping capabilities and allows true any time and any where shopping and purchasing.

Retailers have been providing any time and any where product purchasing capabilities for a long time and for the most part they have remained focused on simplification of the purchase.  Consumers however have been searching and building methods and capabilities to shop any time and any where.  There is a big difference and the outcome of this difference is methods to support the consumer retail shopping and purchasing demands in a virtual shopping mall environment.  These social tools have allowed consumers to shop and interact with friends and family virtually in the same manner they interacted at the malls. These location and subject based tools allow consumers to streamline and focus their shopping in a manner that shortens the search and promotes additional sales based on their actual interests rather than the blanket advertising.

Some retailers understand and embrace this social virtual shopping trend, while others are fighting to remain in the past.  Retailers must engage in consumer social networks and provide a community site that encourages consumers to engage on the site and most importantly, to return to the site.  Retailers must utilize social networking tools and social network outlets to encourage consumers to return and shop a their site and to explore products.  The social network tools and capabilities provide a means for other consumers to interact directly with each other to provide reviews and recommendations to others.  Consumers want to engage with other consumers and provide advice based on their experience and retailers must learn to channel these actions to encourage consumers to return and linger on their site.

Retailers must focus on encouraging consumers to return and engage at their site in order to maintain sales and succeed in the future.  Retailers must end their focus on the purchase and enhance their focus on shopping and the consumer engagement.  Retailers can use social networking tools and capabilities to enhance the consumer experience in ways that provide an type of personal shopper experience and encourage the consumer to return and engagement with the retailer and other consumers.  Social networking tools and capabilities allow retailers to engage again with consumers and that is what consumers are searching for, someone to pay attention to their own personal needs and desires.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Lifestyle Impact On Black Friday

We have already seen an impact on Black Friday sales and plans resulting from the impact of consumer lifestyle demands in the focus purchasing outlets changing from brick and mortar to virtual purchasing methods.  These changes began in earnest last year and are expanding and continuing this year.  You already have seen an impact on purchasing from eCommerce over the last few days especially from consumers that have shifted from in-store purchasing to eComerce purchasing and this shift is not taking place along generational lines.  These shifts are taking place based on lifestyle demands and opportunities where consumers are given a choice in purchasing online or fighting the crowds, a great deal more consumers are choosing to make the purchase online.

A major factor in these shifts is consumer comfort and confidence in the technology and the online purchasing services.  Another factor is the embrace of mobile technology (smartphones, apps and network) and social networking by consumers of all generations and the expansion of commercial advertising on these networks.  Consumers are taking control of their shopping and purchasing practices now more than ever and utilizing the mobile tools and technology in these changes to allow them to tailor their shopping and purchasing to meet their changing lifestyles

These factors are interesting to me because by all accounts and appearances the major retailers have been caught flat footed from these shifting consumer demands.  The majority of major retailers and by all accounts news outlets as well have been focused in the past and controlling consumer purchasing while consumers themselves are changing their shopping and purchasing practices.  The news outlets are still focused on the brick and mortar Black Friday shopping crowds while consumers are continuing to shift to virtual shopping and eCommerce purchasing.  I see the news reports hyping the shopping while I hear a completely different story when discussing Christmas shopping with friends and family.

These changes are impacting the not only the consumer to retailer relationship and they are also affecting the manufacturer to consumer relationship from the perspective of both interaction and purchasing.  Most major large retailers continue fight consumer shopping changes by focusing limiting sales across channels and ignoring consumer and partner collaboration.  Consumers have already moved beyond these futile limitations through their embrace of new tools and apps offered by third party developers and the wireless services.  Retailers must shift their focus now to support consumer lifestyles and collaboration demands if they are to succeed and even survive in the retail environment in the future.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Crowdsourcing Impact On Purchasing

Retailers are challenged to adjust and incorporate new methods and features demanded by consumers to encourage and ensure consumer retention and sales.  These demands are especially challenging because they require a level of collaboration and open cooperation across partners and consumers at greater and greater levels.  These demands are coming faster and faster as millennials have entered into the marketplace bringing with them increased integration and collaboration demands.  Retailers have displayed a history of fighting consumer demands for collaboration and support of new shopping methods.  Unfortunately for retailers this hesitation has not slowed consumer change however it has hurt consumer relationships with retailers.

Retailers have struggled with incorporating consumer demands into their shopping and purchasing capabilities and as such their relationships with consumers.  I see the impact of the millennial generation directly on the demands and retailer relationship with consumers.  Millennials have taken the technology available to mash together in ways that support their demands and bypass retailer efforts to control purchasing.  Consumers now have shopping options supported by technology that are highly flexible and support their changing lifestyles.  Retailers now are struggling to in their attempts to control rather than building collaborative environments that can engage the consumers in their new demands.  

Consumers have recognized and embraced the tools available to improve their shopping and purchasing capabilities to meet their lifestyle needs.  There are thousands of outlets from online to brick and mortar that consumers can utilize and consumers are beginning to embrace the tools that will allow them to shop and purchase in the most efficient manner.  The large retailers must now recognize and adjust to these demands if they are to survive much longer.  I see large retailers struggling to adjust and control changes in shopping and purchasing when they should be collaborating with partners and consumers to develop new shopping practices that support consumer demands.

The large retailers have been stuck in the past in their practices and must incorporate dramatic change into their capabilities and relationships with consumers and their supply chain partners.  There is a dramatic change coming and retailers must change in order to survive in the future.  Consumers are in the beginning stages of taking control of their shopping and purchasing in ways that were not available a year ago and in addition, a year from now the changes in the environment will be even greater.  Retailers have no choice, they must change or die and change does not mean a focus on the lowest price, free shipping or purchasing any time, change means collaboration and developing new relationships with consumers and other retailers to support consumer lifestyles.  This holiday season will see a greater shift to online purchasing and retailers must adjust to this in creating a virtual environment that supports the consumer shopping needs.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Retail Shopping As Crowdsourcing

Consumers are creating a virtual shopping experience across platforms and partners, or content producers, and products that resembles in many ways a crowdsourcing shopping and purchasing environment.  This environment produces production suggestions and recommendations based on consumer feedback and suggestions and then allows the consumers to search on factors that influence their purchase such as price, availability and service factors.  Retailers would do well to evaluate their practices as they relate to this new consumer behavior and this crowdsourcing practices to align their strategies to support incorporate their practices to both support and then learn from these new shopping and purchasing practices.

The challenge with these consumer shopping and purchasing practices for retailers is to identify and then determine how to relate and support these practices.  Retailers must understand that they will not be able to control and direct these practices, which is a big change for the large retailers.  This is where we see the large retailers struggling quite frankly as well because it is extremely easy for consumers to walk away in the virtual shopping mall for any reason.  Consumers have embraced these new practices in large part because it puts them in control of their purchasing and provides a wide variety of options that can be used to support their lifestyle requirements where time and location do not hinder the ability to purchase.

There are a variety of tools that consumers have embraced to extend their virtual shopping with the critical factor now being the smartphone and wireless capabilities.  These two tools together are changing the way consumers interact with the retailer through apps and tools that allow them to connect and interact immediately while shopping.  Consumers are now able to mash up interactions and discussions with their social networks along with shopping apps that provide suggestions and shopping information based on both product and location.  This provides a type of continuous pop-up sales running commentary that allows consumers to extend their virtual shopping and utilize the information provided by these divergent providers to enhance their shopping experience.

As an example of the power of the smartphone, wireless and consumer apps capabilities Google now provides enhanced location search and notification capabilities that extend and improve the consumer experience by providing, without your specific request, location based suggestions for finding your way around.  When you go into a mall parking lot, for instance, Google will provide a map of the mall with locations of all the stores in the mall along with a summary of the products offered in the store.  Combine that with Facebook social network interaction and shopping apps such as Retail Me Not and you come up with a killer shopping opportunity for consumers that eliminates the dependency on retailers.  This is just the beginning of location based technology mashed up with social networking to improve the consumer shopping and purchasing experience.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaboration Community Shopping

The collaboration community is bringing about a new method for shopping that will change the retailer requirements to support the consumer demands.  Collaboration community shopping is the social interaction between one-to-many friends to learn about products, obtain feedback from these friends and obtain suggestions where to purchase products. In other words, it is the social side of shopping that is generated by the interaction and encouragement of other community members.  This is the type of shopping that brings the social aspect that has been missing from eCommerce and omni channel purchasing into the equation and this is what will also encourage the consumers to return to the community over and over again.

There are definitely some types of products that would not benefit as much from the community shopping practice, such as home supplies and hardware and home improvements.  Although even these products and the market in general are becoming more fashion minded and influenced by the reactions and suggestions of friends and family.  The areas though that will initially benefit the most from this community shopping practices are apparel, specialty stores and electronics, basically any type of store that does well in a mall will benefit greatly from this virtual community shopping.  These are product types and markets that are encouraged by feedback and suggestions by friends and family.  

The collaboration community provides a venue that extends the FourSquare social networking concept to the next level.  This social interaction is important in creating the total social shopping experience that most consumers just do not have the time or the energy in many cases to encourage.  Most consumers do not have the time to coordinate and then participate in a day of shopping due to the demands of their family and jobs.  This provides a community that can participate and provide feedback in a manner that is asynchronous in nature and not require the ‘in the moment’ reactions to products and questions.  

However, there is also a spontaneous nature to this type of community shopping that allows friends and family to participate in shopping in the spur of the moment.  The community shopping must provide tools and capabilities to allow the consumer to build their own contact lists and then provide the tools to support immediate sharing and communications across your contact list to support your interaction with contacts during your shopping.  I know that almost everyone has at one point or another reached out through Facebook or instant messaging to friends and family while shopping to ask for their opinions.  I know that when I shop it is not unusual for me to call, text and send photos of products to my wife for opinions and suggestions.  I think there is a huge untapped opportunity for retailers to generate interest and retain consumers on their sites by offering the means to virtually shop with their friends and family.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Consumer Chain Continuous Improvement

The consumer chain provides a very functional model for a collbarotative continuous improvement framework that integrates the consumer feedback from the both the community and the eCommerce channel into a functional framework.  This framework will allow the retailer to capture the feedback and suggestions from consumers and then deliver on a response that incorporates the suggestions. This framework not only provides a means to collect and incorporate consumer feedback, it also provides a method and a reason for consumers to return.  This continuous improvement cycle that incorporates the consumer feedback and suggests into the process will deliver value and also encourage the consumer to return and participate in the future.

It is important for the retailer to formalize the improvement cycle to ensure that the framework is maintained and that the consumer participates in the process.  The retailer will continue to realize the benefits as long as they maintain this cycle and encourage the consumer participation.  The consumer collaboration frame can be a double edged sword though, The retailer will realize benefits from the relationship, on the other hand, as soon as the retailer begins to ignore the consumer suggestions the consumers will also stop participating and then the resulting benefits will disappear.  One very important factor, and benefit, of this consumer feedback continuous improvement framework is that consumers will increase activity and response as the retailer incorporates their feedback.

The consumer community acts as a collector of suggestions and response to actions taken by the retailer and the eCommerce site and the brick and mortar stores provide the actions and changes resulting from the consumer feedback suggestions.  Initially the retailer will need to ‘prime’ the consumer community with questions to encourage the feedback and suggestions from the consumer.  As I have mentioned before though the objective of the consumer community is to generate their own response and suggestions without encouragement from the retailer.  The combination of the community and the eCommerce site provide the capabilities to quickly cycle through trial and revision responses to clarify and improve the suggestions based on the consumer feedback.  

A key benefit of this framework is the standardized message and response to the suggestions by the retailer.  This allows for the the response to be standardized through the eCommerce channel for all consumers in all markets rather than depending on the individual's rolling out the improvements in each store and in each market. Depending on individual clerks and store management to roll out the improvements in the same manner does not provide the same level of compliance and then the response measurement is also more difficult.  This incorporation of the Internet channel into the retail sales strategy turns the strategy definition and implementation on its head and also will provide dramatic improvements in the execution and benefits derived from the strategy.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Consumer Chain As Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing the selection and marketing of retail goods is an additional area that can be provided by the consumer chain and especially the consumer community that supports the eCommerce purchasing channel.  Viewing the consumer community as a crowdsourcing outlet for product selection and marketing is the next logical value added opportunity provided by the consumer chain.  This provides the retailer the direct channel to request and analyze consumer suggestions in a near real time manner and without the filters of marketing surveys or satisfaction surveys.  The results from the community and the resulting activities in the eCommerce sales channel provide real and direct feedback to utilize to crowdsource the product selection and presentation decisions.

Crowdsourcing is generally thought of as a means to fund projects or new companies which is not what I am suggesting, in this concept I am defining crowdsourcing as a means to improve products and shopping methods.  This is basically a new method to obtain the consumer input as a replacement to consumer surveys and focus groups.  The consumer chain provides a means for the retailer to collaborate with the consumer openly and subconsciously through the consumer community and the eCommerce channel.  This allows the retailer to try out concepts that are both internally generated and also externally generated by the consumer.  This collaboration allows and encourages hybrid concepts in marketing shopping, sales and products that would not be possible through the previous methods.

This method of crowdsourcing brings dramatic benefits to the retailer through shorter development cycles and also shorter validation cycles.  This crowdsourcing process implements a continuous improvement process that will benefit the retailer with increased customer retention along with improved sales while reducing the cost of development through the consumer collaboration.  The retailer can encourage the consumer to participate via a couple of straightforward methods; special offers and simply asking for and then acting on their feedback.  Simply acting on the consumer feedback can be a very powerful encouragement for the consumer to participate and then return on a regular basis.  This is after all a key objective of the retailer - the more a consumer returns the greater the number of sales they will complete.

This type of crowdsourcing is very low cost process for the retailer, however the retailer must also be very careful to follow through on the execution and implementation of consumer suggestions.  Consumers are happy to collaborate and provide their suggestions.  On the other hand, consumers are also very sharp and unforgiving when they feel they have be played and the retailer ignores their suggestions.  The bottom line is that the retailer must commit to the long term collaboration with the consumer in order to reap the benefits of this type of crowdsourcing.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Commerce 2.0 Data Collection

The Big Data challenge is twofold, one is the collection and storage of the data and the second is utilizing this data.  Both of these aspects are at the same time dependent and promoting each other.  They are dependent because the data collected should from one perspective be driven by the use of that data.  They are promoting each other because the needs and capabilities of one aspect feed the other aspect.  The challenge here however is a classic ‘chicken or the egg’ question; does the utilization drive the collection, or the collection drive the utilization?  I think that the challenge is to collect the data based on a future potential and not on a current need. It is important to build the collection capabilities based on the future potential because you want to ensure that you have historical information for queries and analysis when you identify the need.  

At one point in time this concept was almost overwhelming from a cost perspective and an analysis perspective.  The cost of storage was expensive and the tools and computing horsepower were in their infancy in the ability to support search and comparison requirements of large amounts of data crunching.  These limitations drove frustration from the business and technology staff at the same time.  From the technology perspective there was a great deal of difficulty and effort required to justify the cost of the of equipment to support the objective.  From the business perspective there was a great deal of frustration because it seemed that any time one analysis determined the need for additional data, the technology either did not have the data or required a great deal of effort to create the analysis.  A third technical frustration was the time involved in collecting and analyzing the data.

Current capabilities have overcome the technology hurdles; storage and computing power is cheap.  These capabilities are also changing and improving on a continuous basis.  This has allowed the potential of Big Data concepts to at least start to be realized.  With this realization comes a new realization, though, of the real, or additional, potential achievable.  This realization is driving new desires and needs in technology and capabilities.  We have seen the changes realized in the consumer market and shopping capabilities encouraged and driven by improvements in mobile technology.  There are similar capabilities encouraged and driving in the research and analysis of data by improvements in Big Data technology.  My advice is to not cut yourself short, or hold yourself back, by limiting the amount of data that you collect.  My advice is to collect everything from every aspect of the consumer market so that your analysis can go where it needs as your analysis and questions expand.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumers’ experience?  Improving the consumers experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Consumers And Technology

Technology has become a dual driving force in relation to consumers and this force is driving and changing the consumer social practices which in turn is also driving changes into their shopping practices.  I have come to think of it as an infinity loop where technology manufacturers develop and market new technology to consumers and then the consumers use that new technology to simplify their shopping habits with all other retailers.  Mobile technology is currently the key driving force to these changes however this is simply the latest tool in the technology world.

In the initial wave of Internet technologies the desktop computer was the driving factor and the capabilities basically doubled every two years, driving consumers to new purchases to obtain the new technologies.  Next these new capabilities and cost reductions were driven by laptops which also drove consumers to replace the desktop workstations with laptops which allowed them mobility inside and outside their house.  We finally reached the point when the advancements were not so dramatic and wireless capabilities started to lead the capabilities improvements which allowed mobile technology to flourish.  

We are now in the mobile technology wave and by comparison we are seeing the same dramatic advances in mobile technology that we saw previously in the initial wave of Internet technologies.  Unsurprisingly we are also seeing the eager consumer adoption of this technology which is now driving dramatic changes in consumer shopping practices.  In this current wave the combination of technology tools, improvements in wireless availability and bandwidth and the mobility of the tools have come together to drive increasingly dramatic changes in consumer shopping habits.  The key to this current wave is the impact of the mobile software; there’s an app for everything now.  

These new capabilities are in essence pitting one retail sector against another; the success of the technology retail sector is directly impacting the other retail sectors from CPG to apparel to entertainment.  New software mobile apps are now encouraging and supporting these new shopping habits that allows consumers to shop prices and products from all stores while standing in one store.  This is why I compared these practices as an infinity loop.  

Each iteration of this loop now is delivering more power to the consumer and with the new mobile apps the consumer is able to harness this new power to increase their leverage with retailers.  As I have previously discussed retailers have been fighting these improvements in consumer capabilities but they must soon realize that they cannot hope to fight this wave when there is another member of the retail market that is realizing new success and sales increases with every improvement in this new mobile technology.  This is why I have promoted the continuous improvement cycle to allow retailers to react to the changes.

Omni Channel Social Strength

A specific strength of the omni channel shopping culture is the social networking capabilities that the channel and practices support.  Omni channel was born of technology and can be utilized to embrace the social networking capabilities of technology to enhance the consumer shopping experience.  This capability will also enhance the relationship between the consumer and the retailer to encourage repeat shopping and also word of mouth promotion.  I find that the most interesting aspect of the omni channel customer experience is the ability of the technology to humanize the shopping experience.  The social trend and impact is expanding into the commercial aspect of the consumer and market by demand of the consumer and this is changing shopping habits along with the retail direct to consumer channel.

Technology is having an interesting impact on the retail and social market as a culture enhancer and expander.  What I mean by this is that technology is being used by people as consumers and also in relationship building and management as a means to enhance the social interaction.  Rather than technology de-humanizing relationships it is being used by the public and consumers for the exact opposite capability to humanize the relationship.  This can be both encouraging and intimidating to the retailer.  It is encouraging because the consumer is using the social networking capabilities to help in their shopping which will reduce the sales clerk (human) interaction from the retailer. It is intimidating because the technology allows the customer to take more control in their shopping and increases the external influences on the consumer shopping that is outside the control of the retailer.

As I’ve discussed previously, the best course of action for the retailer is to embrace these extensions of technology and the related modifications to the consumer shopping practices.  Embracing these practices will in turn increase the consumer loyalty and sales.  On the other hand though, fighting these practices will cause a backlash from the consumers and will not change the practices.  Take for instance the practice of window shopping where the consumer goes to a store to look at and try a product and then purchases the product from another outlet for less cost.  Retailers were at war against this practice and reacted through various means and tactics.  The result is that consumers are still practicing window shopping and the retailers with brick and mortar outlets have only upset the consumers with this fight and caused them to shop at other outlets.

My advice is to embrace and encourage the new practices because it will in the end increase the customer loyalty and repeat purchases.  I would argue that Amazon’s strategy to forgo the drive for profits early in its life was ingenious because the practice created a whole generation of consumers loyal to the brand and a whole generation of repeat customers.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Priorities

I was shopping in at Verizon Wireless in the last week and experienced a very positive example of the potential for omni channel shopping that was really quite impressive.  There are many retailers right now that are utilizing multiple channels for marketing and sales that while they may be utilizing multiple channels, they are not supporting truly omni channel shopping and marketing.  I have been saying this for a while now in my discussions because it is a truly important factor in the omni channel discussion; omni channel shopping is not just utilizing multiple channels, omni channel shopping is actually linking the channels, and supply chain across multiple channels to create a truly seamless and single experience to the consumer.

The results of the omni channel shopping implementation can be dramatic to the consumer; both positive and negative.  Execution is critical in fostering the omni channel experience and this is why Retailers must be focus on the execution and developing the seamless shopping experience.  I think that it may be better to not enter into a channel until you have validated and proven you ability to execute in that channel.  In this case I strongly believe in the old adage that you can only make a first impression once.  The consumer experience is very much influenced by that first impression and must be nurtured to ensure a positive experience.  If you as a retailer start to develop your capabilities in omni channel shopping simple to reduce costs or because you are following the market you will have a very high likelihood of failure.  

Consumers as a group have dramatically increased their sophistication and utilization of technology in their shopping habits.  The age of the Internet is not just a catchy phrase but a concept that describes embracing the technology in all areas of day to day life.  Because of the advanced technology available to consumers in the form of both hardware like smartphones and tablets combined with advanced software capabilities delivered by third party and Internet leaders consumers have come to expect a level of capability in their life which crosses over all aspects and especially shopping.  For this reason it is important for the retailer to flawlessly execute these capabilities to ensure the repeat business from consumers and also the word of mouth promotion of their capabilities to other consumers.

Another benefit of the age of the Internet is in the social capabilities and potential capabilities delivered through technology.  The interesting point here is that as the world and access expands through technology and the Internet, the social applications provided via the Internet are at the same time expanding the consumer interaction.  What this means is that everyone can provide immediate reviews and reaction which will influence their sphere of contacts.  This provides an electronic party line that can drive consumers to a retailer and just as easily and quickly drive consumers away from the retailer.  This is why execution is critical to the success of the retailer.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Culture

I believe that omni channel retail should be view as a reflection of the consumer’s culture.  Afterall in the United States shopping in malls and outlets is a social event and for many people a form of entertainment. The retailers have always thrived on this practice to the extent of adding entertainment outlets such as theater and event amusement parks in the malls and outlets.  This practice however may be coming into conflict with another cultural change, the increase in the amount of time spent focused on careers and jobs in general.  This second event of increased professional, or work, focus and a seeming decrease in amusement focus may be starting to impact the retail consumer and changing the way the consumer purchases.

There have always been catalogs; they started with the paper variety from Sears for instance or Spiegel.  The catalogs have evolved now into electronic media as eCommerce online sites that provide more timely and dynamic listings.  The basic foundational concepts of direct to consumer sales channel apply, however with the customer order entry revised.  Consumers have become much more comfortable with eCommerce shopping now to the point where it is really making in-roads in the retail sales totals and become a major channel that is expanding each year.

This all ties back to the decrease in leisure time and the current and future impact on the shopping experience.  I see a change beginning in the retail channel that is shifting the importance of eCommerce and this I believe is due to a few factors, one of which is the decrease in leisure time that then translates into a reduction in consumer brick and mortar shopping.  eCommerce shopping provides the convenience of shopping any time for anything and allows the consumer to focus their limited leisure time on activities that bring additional value to their life, such as family activities.

This change in the consumer shopping habits may take some time to evolve and settle, however in this time of ever increasing discontinuous change I think it would be wise for retailers to increase their utilization of technology to provide the consumer the types of convenience and ease of shopping that will make them return to the retailer for more of their shopping needs.  Retailers should promote a strategy of ‘Try Everything’ to encourage the consumer to think of them when shopping.  This strategy should include expanding collaboration with what may have been viewed as competitors in the past because the consumer certainly will.  Unfortunately, I don’t think that the retail market has much of a choice in this matter, Amazon and Google are poised to change the consumer shopping experience and they will not wait for any retailer to catch up.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel Tools Potential

The capabilities and expansion of commerce tools will be driven by third party software developers based on experiences with other market channels like music, travel and entertainment.  This includes Google and Amazon which both already provide an eCommerce sales channel.  This prediction is based on history and human nature, all recent industries that have undergone great change have been dragged kicking and screaming into the future.

The music industry is the greatest example of this type of fight against the future taken to the extreme where they took their fight out to the people with lawsuits.  That was the perfect example of a futile fight and the industry could have spent its money and efforts on preparing for the future.  The industry really should have seen the movement with the introduction of Amazon and the Kindle on the literature industry.  Its really kind of humorous if you ask me because the people in the music industry all took advantage of the improvements delivered through technology but for some strange reason just could not give up the dying sales channel.

I see the same tendency from major brick and mortar retailers to fight the trends and the new developments embraced by customers.  The recent war against ‘window shopping’ is a great example.  Window shopping is the practice of customers to go to the store to touch and try the product and then order online to take advantage of a lower price.  The retailers initial reaction was to fight the practice and to a very large extent they are still fighting the new practices that are introduced by customers.  I have said before that the way to grow and and expand business is to encourage and embrace innovations and especially from the consumers.  

Amazon and Google are poised to change the omni channel experience by extending the services and capabilities they’ve learned through eCommerce sales and marketing.  Both have a dramatic head start in this area and it will be difficult if not impossible to overcome.  This head start was built over time with a great deal of investment in technology development and hardware.  This head start will allow both Google and Amazon to fashion the industry for a long time to come.  If the retail industry continues to fight the innovations, they will do nothing but perhaps slow them.  Instead of fighting they must embrace in order to influence and help to guide the impact of the innovations.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

In previous discussions I have mentioned some apps and other tools that I find useful in my holiday shopping so I thought I would  take this time to bring together the tools that I have found most useful.  As a general strategy for incorporating tools into my shopping I find that I work best with tools that work just as well on my smartphone as a computer.  This is important to me because shopping is best I think when you have the options to see and touch some of the merchandise, I don’t require this for every purchase but I do find it works best for some products.  

All that said though I try to limit my in person shopping to short bursts, I follow a purchase method rather than shopping when I go to a store.  What I mean by this is I’ve determined what I need, I go in, purchase and then get out.  I bring this up now because it is a guiding force for the tools and my utilization of the tools.  I use the tools for two things:

1. General shopping and narrowing the search for my purchase.
2. Pricing comparisons to determine my method of purchase.

Frankly I find that email is one of the most valuable tools in my shopping.  I have configured my email to fill all shopping type messages into one folder.  This allows me to quickly review, and ignore, any commerce type messages without ‘junking’ up my important messages.  This practice allows me to quickly and easily review messages as necessary, during the holiday season I pay a little more attention and then during the off season I frequently just delete everything.  This also allows me to manage mail lists and create filter to manage the mail.

There are three services that I find very useful; Groupon, Crowdcut and LivingSocial.  Each of these provide great deals in both eCommerce and in person shopping.  I like these frankly for impulse type purchases rather than looking for specific products.  They are also good for gift ideas year round, I frequently find a great deal and then save the item for a future gift.  Crowdcut and LivingSocial are similar services and together all three provide great options for a wide variety of items.  These services also provide apps for your smartphone to allow easy access when you are not near your computer.

I have found a new app this year for use on my smartphone called RetailMeNot.  This is a very handy app that will alert you of sales and specials from a wide variety of retailers and you can utilize this for price comparisons and specials.  This app is more focused on eCommerce channels and specials.  I find this useful though even when shopping in malls because the direct shipment to my home is very convenient.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel As Personal Shopper

The greatest potential of Omni Channel shopping may be the ability to support a virtual personal shopper and the age of Big Data is bringing great opportunities to the Omni Channel market for supporting a virtual personal shopper.  The key opportunity I believe is for a tool that will track your shopping from all retailers to help in guiding a personalized search engine.  I understand that this is a stretch opportunity right now and I think if I were to select the one thing that would generate the greatest value to both the consumer and the market this would be my choice.

There are retailers, like Lowes Building Supplies, that have introduced this type of frequent customer tracking for their customers for purchases in the store and online.  You may belong to this program, every time you make a purchase at Lowes they scan your card and the purchase is tracked.  This information can then be used later, for instance if you need another can of red paint you can look up the exact tint that you purchased for replacement.  Grocers are another good example of these frequent customer programs and they specialize offers and coupons based upon your shopping habits.  Most companies are using your purchasing information already to help in developing their marketing strategies and sales forecasts, you should be looking to take advantage of this information yourself to help in your shopping activities.  

The only retail company that crosses a broad spectrum of products that I can think of is Amazon.  Amazon has made a mission of developing the community aspect to humanize the online store through rating products, requesting customers answer other customers’ questions and then a scary-accurate product suggestion algorithm to promote new products.  Apple and Google are getting into the electronic wallet business which will give both an option to collect information about your purchasing habits.  

Samsung has partnered with BeepnGo which is an app that will store all of your frequent shopper cards and can be used to search for promotions.  I think this is a great concept also and provides some great benefits such as not carrying around all of those obnoxious cards, keeping track of sales and offers for easy search.  I see the next step in this would be to provide the customer with advanced search capabilities based on previous purchases and searches.  It could save size and color choices along with styles to refine suggestions.  

The point to retailers is that consumers have shown in the past they have no problem taking advantage of new advanced capabilities, there is really very little loyalty in the retail market.  These changes will either happen ‘to’ the retailers or ‘with’ the retailers.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?

Omni Channel And Collaboration

There can be no success in omni channel shopping without collaboration from the manufacturer to the end customer.  I think the missing link is asking and then acting on the responses from the end customer.  The shopping experience is the customers’ experience and the customer should have some say in their experience, don’t you think?  The key hurdle in this suggestion is the collaboration with the customer to define and clarify that experience.  This means that your should be both asking the questions and then confirming your response, a classic continuous improvement cycle.

Consumer shopping is not the first market that experienced the game changing impact of technology on the commonly held perceptions and practices.  Just look at the impact of the literature market and the music market as examples of the impact and resulting changes to the industry.  Amazon changed the literature market and left a trail of dead businesses in its wake.  The iPod and electronic music sharing changed the music delivery and sales industry and also left a trail of dead businesses in its wake.  The common denominator is that both of these industries refused to listen to the message there customers were giving them.  

Cyber and cloud technologies give a very impactful tool to the consumer and over the years the consumer has shown that they will use this tool in ways that may not be in line with the current and accepted practices.  By the same token, consumers are more than willing to share their preferences if the market will only listen.  This time though it seems that the retail industry may be trying to listen, although in my opinion they have slowed in their reactions and changes to the consumers’ preferences.  

This is where collaboration and a continuous improvement program will prove extremely valuable.  It is time to listen to the voice of the consumer in the shopping experience in offering new shopping options.  This is where online shopping can really show value by providing options and suggestions.  The consumer wants what they want when they want it.  They may not have a clear concept of the exact product and that is where technology can provide support with options and suggestions.  I suggest that most consumers are looking for the personal shopper experience, as an example, and this is where technology can support the desire.  In my experiences retail outlets have been reducing costs by reducing sales clerks and then without sales clerks consumers are left to wander the store looking for products.

Web sites provide something of a  personal shopper experience search engine and big data capabilities to provide suggestions and comparisons to the consumer.  I suggest that the retail outlet that combines the online capabilities with the in person experience will change the shopping experience and significantly grow their sales.  This is the type of collaboration with the consumers that will help the omni channel market grow sales and meet the consumers expectations.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

What types of cross channel services and offerings would you like to see to enhance your shopping experience?  Retailers are focused on maintaining sales volumes through reductions in pricing rather than expansion of sales, or even maintaining sales through creative utilization of eCommerce services. Did you shop over the Gray Thursday / Black Friday period?  What was your experience in stores and malls?