Retail Service In Mobile Age

The introduction of mobile technology in the retail market along with the wholehearted embrace of this technology by consumers is redefining service as well as the shopping and purchasing model for consumers.  Consumers are redefining their expectations of retail service and utilizing mobile technology to drive their service demands to meet their lifestyle changes.  This in turn is driving changes into the retailer’s customer relationship management and services that is also impacting sales and consumer retention.   These consumer changing and growing service demands by consumers are redefining their relationship with retailers along with the methods of interaction through shopping and purchasing.  

It is no longer enough to simply offer a product and ensure the stock level in the channel where the consumer desires to purchase, retailers must create a social interaction that focuses on consumer retention and interaction with friends and family during the experience.  Consumers are changing the experience from a purchase anytime and any place to a shop anytime and anyplace.  This change in consumer focus also dramatically changes the retail service model to one of social interaction and relationship development.  Retailers must develop this relationship interaction with consumers in order to remain successful and this means that retailers must become more agile and available.  This becomes an ‘always on’ requirement for retailers to develop and encourage their relationship with and across consumers.  

Consumers are in the early stages of replacing the physical mall with a virtual mall and this requires the retailer to provide a virtual shopping experience for consumers to participate.  The trick is the interactive participation with and across consumers to expand the retail experience into an entertaining multi-person activity.  Consumers are already using social media and mobile technology to directly interact with friends and family in real time using a combination of mobile and social technologies and retailers must also tap these same capabilities to create a compelling experience that meets consumer demands and encourages consumer expansion and retention.  

One aspect that I find especially interesting is interaction and ads from other retailers and even manufacturers during the retail shopping experience.  This allows retailers to provide additional activities for consumers to try or even provide opportunities for video interaction with consumers.  Retailers have been experimenting with a virtual dressing room concept for a while and I think that instead of a virtual dressing room that consumers would be more interesting in interactive video with their social network during the shopping experience.  Consumers are more interested in their friends opinions of how something looks that a virtual dressing room that only provides a hint of fit.  

Retailers must be flexible and imaginative in their consumer service offerings.  They must listen and respond quickly to consumer demands with an acceptance that they may need to walk away from a service offering at short notice.  The point is that retailers must provide new service offerings that support consumer demands for a relationship.

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?

Omni Channel To Market Channel

The retail market is being reshaped now by the demands and practices of consumers to mold this market to meet their changing lifestyle.  Consumers are utilizing mobile and wireless technology to drive these changes to reshape the market rather than following direction from retailers to shape the retail market into channels. Consumers are ignoring the direction and objectives of retailers to shape the market in a manner that fits the retailer’s assumptions and instead are using mobile and wireless technology to create a retail market channel that blurs the distinction across existing retail channels and also blurs the distinction between retailers.  Consumers are shaping the market rather than accepting the retailer’s offerings and desire to maintain separate channels.

Consumers are creating a virtual shopping mall that is based on product and not retailer or outlet and they are using mobile and wireless technology to eliminate the distinctions and create this virtual mall. Retailers have spent a lot of time and effort in maintaining the channels and competition with other retailers and now consumers have turned this on it’s head to disrupt the retail marketplace. In the past retailers have be in charge of the shopping and purchasing practices mainly through malls and then through eCommerce.  Retailers have fought to maintain the control while encouraging consumers to purchase any time and any where.  To the surprise of retailers consumers had their own objectives which is to change their shopping and purchasing practices to meet their changing lifestyles.

The tipping point of this change is the consumer embrace of mobile and wireless technology in combination with social networking technology.  Consumers are using this technology to help them to create a new retail market that is not dependent on purchase channel and supports their lifestyle allowing them to shop any time and any place for any product.  In the past, consumers would need to shop in a mall to purchase the products they desire and these shopping outings eventually turned into a social outlet.  The Internet has changed this perspective to allow the consumers to create a virtual mall to support their shopping and purchasing needs.  Consumers have never really been interested in retailer based purchasing, consumers have always purchased from retailers based on the product and service offered.  Retailers have really been fooled into believing that shoppers returned to the store brand when they are only really returning because of the product and service.

Retailers have focused on building service into their brand and this has been a winning strategy in the past.  Now however we are seeing that consumers are interested in a retail market that supports their changing lifestyle and this means that retailers must also change to focus on meeting the consumer’s changing lifestyle.

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?

Impact Of Brand On Retail Markte

Retailer brand does not seem to make a large difference now in the marke that consumers are creating to shop and purchase. Product brand definitely makes a difference and consumers do react to product brand, however I don’t see that consumers care much whether they purchase from one retailer or another.  I seems to me that we are moving from a retail brand market focus to a product brand market focus.  Consumers have come to realize that the outlet from which they purchase is less important than the product they are purchasing.  This is a dramatic shift from that past and is brought about by the changes in technology that the consumer has embraced to enhance their shopping and purchasing practices.

Retailers are struggling with this realization to find their way in this new marketplace that is very fluid in the manner in which consumers interact and react with retailers for their shopping and purchasing.  I see that consumers care about 3 things shopping and purchasing:

1. Reputation of the retailer outlet for standing behind the sale and and after-sale support for resolving any issues.
2. Availability of the project and ease of purchase
3. Cost of the product as it relates to other outlets, it must be a reasonable price when combined with the other considerations.

I think that major retailer brands are having difficulty accepting these considerations and the results of this struggle are reduced sales and market share.  A good example of this is the brief sales strategy change made by JC Penney to eliminate the focus on special sales prices and go to an everyday low price.  They found out that consumers expected the sales pricing and assumed they could find better pricing elsewhere without most consumers giving the new strategy a chance.

Retailers must focus on service, reputation and availability of product to make the consumer shopping experience as seamless and simple as possible in order to survive in this new marketplace.  They must focus on product brand and build their strategy around simplicity of shopping and purchase delivery rather than simply on the sale.  The entry of Amazon into the fashion apparel market will only speed up this shift now with consumer’s focus on product rather than retailer.  This is a very good development for consumers and their drive for shopping simplicity and it is very intimidating for the major retailers because Amazon will be taking a bite out of their sales. Retailers must focus on developing a robust shopping presence that supports the shoppers changing lifestyles and they must focus on the product brand and brand comparisons in this changing shopping environment.

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?