Episode 10: Why it’s crucial retailers deliver the same experience in-store as online

Amie sits down with Ben Cook, Regional VP of Growth at NewStore, to discuss the gap between online, mobile and in-store experiences customers are facing with retailers. What are the leaders doing right? And how can others enhance the customer experience?

Transcript

Intro:

Coming up on this episode of Retail Untangled.

If I buy stuff online I can get it delivered to the store, I can walk into a store, they’re everywhere and I can go and pick it up. You’re enabling technology into the hands of the store associates so they can do their jobs better. Give me information that’s kind of personal to me. What’s my loyalty status? What’s my order history? Do you want customers standing three or four deep in a queue only to transact? Or do you want to engage with your customers?

Amie:

Welcome to Retail Untangled. My name is Amie Larter, and this is the podcast where we speak to retail industry experts and find out business hacks that have helped them succeed.

You won't find these gems anywhere else, and we have some superb stories from the coalface as well as helicopter insights from retail industry leaders. 

Recent research into the brands online, mobile, and in-store experiences reveals a notable gap between a handful of leaders and the rest of the pack. This translates to a missed opportunity for retailers to enhance the customer experience and ultimately their bottom line. To unpack this, I'm joined by Ben Cook, Regional VP of Growth at NewStore. Welcome Ben Why do you think this gap exists?

Ben:

Omnichannel in itself. is a technical term, right. And it's invented by the technology industry. nowadays there's lots of conversation around, you know, retail is just retail, commerce is just commerce, customers are customers. Let's think more about the customer journey and what that looks like as it transcends the digital to physical to physical to digital.

And so the concept of omnichannel, and why there's those misconceptions, I think is really based around, well, now I can do a bunch of stuff in the digital world that I never used to be able to do. But I don't get the same experience in the physical world. And now when I go into a store, and what I want to experience in a store isn't necessarily the same as what I want to experience online.

And so often, those misconceptions then come back to, from a consumer's perspective. Just the laggard and the frustrations that they would feel in a physical environment. To give you an example of that, if you walk into a store and they don't necessarily have your size and then you go up to a store associate and say, have you got my size in this?

If they go to their own website, like that's just frustrating. It's like I could have gone to your website. Why do I need you to go to the website?Only to tell me that you don't have it. So it's those kinds of things that then break that omni journey friction. 

Amie:

It's friction. 

Ben:

It's friction through that, that process and through that site.

Amie:

Now omnichannel is, I think we can both agree a very well worn phrase. I'm keen to understand. Why would retailers be having trouble understanding the concept? It seems like everyone's talking about it. So we have a very, I don't know if it's a surface level understanding, but why do you think that they're not quite across that in terms of definition?

Ben:

The concept of omnichannel started, What four or five, six years ago, it really kind of accelerated, in terms of its, sort of rollout and definition through COVID, I think most people think of omnichannel as being, we sell through multiple channels and then how do we kind of bring those channels together, right?

And so what I mean by that is that often forms. In an example like click-and-collect, right? So I'm in a digital space. I want to pick something up from a physical store. Now I order it. It goes through a click-and-collect motion. I want to go to the store and pick it up. Right now we're in the world of omni.

But I don't really see it like that. I think what started with click-and-collect kind of moved into, you know, why would I not be able to get inventory, ship from store, those types of things. How can I not take an online order back into the store and have it returned and get my refund there and then. Then we start getting into principles around pricing promotions.

Why is the price different online than it is in store? Why are the promotions different online than they are in store? Can I have the online promotion? It's like, “oh, sorry, we can't do that at the till.” And then it's like loyalty. Now, if you're going to offer me a loyalty program, what does that loyalty program look like?

So, you know, these concepts of omni that then sort of transverse into unified commerce aren't really being handled very well. It's all part solutions, they're all kind of botched together. You still feel like there's lots of retailers out there that are doing click-and-collect, but actually what they're doing is taking an order, having the order shipped from DC to the store, and you can go and pick it up three or four days later.

Whereas most of us now want a click-and-collect order, where I order it online with the ability to go and pick it up in store in less than an hour. Yeah, that's the true kind of click-and-collect in that space. So, you know, the principles of, investing in omni, understanding what omni is, and then kind of realising that back to their customer base are quite different to those that are doing extremely well and create the baseline for customer expectation. If that makes sense. 

Amie:

Speaking of customer expectation. You're talking about a unified experience per se. What is their expectation in regards to this? Because, we talk about omnichannel from a business perspective, but if you're talking about what a customer wants, what is that unified expectation? 

Ben:

I've mentioned that the omni,  a technology industry term, right? It's been sort of forced on us over the last five or six years.

Amie:

And it's still going. 

Ben:

It's still going. It's still there. Customers just buy stuff, right? As a consumer, I'm lending my time to look for a product that I want to buy. I found your brand or I'm loyal to your brand. And then I just want to buy it under the means of which is more convenient for me.

Right? So if that's online, it's online. If it's on an app, it's on an app. If it's in-store, it's in-store, And therefore it should be, well, I know that you've got one as a retailer. I want one as a consumer. Why is there friction in that process? Consumers don't use the term omni. They just want to know, for example, you're wearing a pink jacket at the moment.

I want to know if I'm going to buy that pink jacket where I want to go and get it. And if I walk into a store in the city and they don't have it, then they should just be able to deliver it to me. Right? 

Amie:

Yeah. 

Ben:

If I go online and I then want to pick it up 'cause I wanna go and wear it tonight, then again I should be able to go and pick that thing up.

Amie:

Yeah. 

Ben:

And so they wanna buy that thing in the manner that they want to do it and they want it available to them. Yeah. Under the basis that, they can consume it. 

Amie:

It's just meeting customers when and where. 

Ben:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The old adage from a retail perspective, never miss a sale, right? That's them coming at that. And omni is there to try and enhance that euphoric position from a consumer perspective. They're like, well, I want one and I kind of want it now. So therefore, if I'm willing to pay you should be willing to get it to me under whatever basis that means.

And so they're where those two worlds kind of collide. And, you know, around that, we wrap things like unified commerce. 

Amie:

Making it more seamless seems so obvious. Yeah, it seems so obvious to be able to meet the customers where they’re at, but there are so many, I won't call them horror stories because I feel like it's a little bit editorialising over here, but even I can give you some really recent examples of being in store, having looked online, knowing that I'm going in there to buy something that's available.

And then even the people in-store, I mean, when I asked them, it says this is available online, it's available here. Oh, it might just say that sometimes it's wrong. And you think, how do we get to this point where everything is so disconnected? So your study identifies a group of omnichannel leaders.

You've got brands like Footlocker, Nordstrom and Shields were named as being exceptional. What specific features or strategies are setting these guys apart? 

Ben:

We're very focused and I kind of talked to the track that is what is the triangulation around a consumer, and that triangulation really is digital, physical and personal, And so the digital aspect, e-comm online, you know, me being able to go onto a browser search the physical, obviously in-store what's going on from an in store perspective. And then the personal being consumer shopping apps, probably most of us are familiar with Amazon’s consumer shopping app. But lots of brands nowadays are releasing a shopping app for themselves.

This report then really focuses on, well, who's doing that well, when I walk into a store, which operation has less friction? Which shopping app is a great user experience? What does a beautiful website look like? That's easy and simple to navigate and to buy.

And therefore who's marketing to each of those channels, who's bringing me into those channels, who's engaging with me with the right content, but also who's making my purchasing process frictionless. And I think those are the brands that are kind of doing it well. They're well recognised, they're global, They're huge brands, lots of moving parts, lots of complexity, but they want to make it simple for the customer to exchange with them. 

Amie:

Yeah. Do you have any example, someone like Footlocker, what is it that has been pinpointed that makes them exceptional?

Ben:

Again, beautiful, stunning website. You can go onto there, you can, navigate well. As someone who wears a huge shoe, I have to get frustrated with, when I'm buying shoes and that, you know, I can click the right, just show me size 13. And still I get swamped with a whole bunch of out of the stock, shoes, similarly, when I go into a store and I'm like, I'm a size 13, do you have anything in-store, I can see a wall of beautiful shoes, but it's like I know that only 10 per cent of those are probably in size 13, Yeah. And so then they ferret around, they run around, they disappear out the back.

With someone like Footlocker, again, On the website I can easily distil what product sets are there for my size and when I walk into store, every time I ask a store associate again, they can look it up on a mobile or a tablet and they can instantly recognize whether they've got it in store or not.

Footwear is very unique in that factor and it's almost then if I don't have it in-store here that I can get it for you. Easily. And so, from a NewStore perspective, we go well into footwear because of the manner in which that omnichannel aspect starts to kind of cross boundaries, right?

All the way down to the consumer shopping app, if I walk into store, I can actually select the store that I'm in. It kind of self determines what that looks like. And then I can say, right, only give me my size for this store. And then suddenly I see all the product that's available in my size in this store, whether it's front of house or back of house.

Amie:

Right, okay, and what about Nordstrom? 

Ben:

Yeah, again, lots of moving parts. You know, they're both the marketplace, they're huge globally, lots of products, lots of SKUs, but they're a very familiar brand with us and when you're in the U. S., you know, you make a beeline for the Nordstrom store, because you kind of know that, That you're going to get what you need.

You can ask an associate, they can look product up really, really quickly. And therefore it becomes a frictionless kind of environment. Plays well in that omnichannel aspect. If I buy stuff online, I get it delivered to the store. I can walk into a store, they're everywhere and I can go and pick it up.

And they also then have additional delivery options. So they always are looking at, how can I get it to you on same day within two, three hours, how can I get it to your office? Like, how can I get it into your hands as quickly as possible under the basis of which you want to buy it?

Amie:

Yeah. When we say it like that, it sounds so simple.

Ben:

Simple right?

Amie:

So simple. Yet easy to go wrong, which is a nice segue into my next question.

What are the greatest mistakes or misconceptions, driving retailers that have failed in this space? Or that are currently not doing so well. 

Ben:

Again, when you start looking at the journeys that, you know, retailers have been on, ecomm 1.0 was kind of 12, 13, 14 years ago. we've kind of gone through a second and third iteration of that.

As I say, COVID really then accelerated the need for a shipping product from store and, or, the desire for click-and-collect. Everything was then transferred into an online world. The digital guys have really owned the technology purse inside of retail for about the last five years.

We've invested heavily in digital. And I think through our omnichannel leadership report, our OLR report, you'll see that Australia leads the world in terms of its digital capability. Then we've kind of added point solutions into there to solve some of these problems. And then like everything point solutions just stick, right? They become the workarounds that are. 

And so what hasn't transpired, is that concept of how well we do online. We know our customer. We can see their digital traits. We can follow them around through pages. We understand what they've been looking at, what they've been browsing, what their browsing history are.

You can add to different wish lists, you know, we go through an abandoned cart motion. We do all of these things. We capture all that data online. And then when you look at in-store, the in store capability generally in Australia is pretty poor. 

Amie:

Yeah. 

Ben:

None of the information is available. So the concept of knowing your customer, as a retailer said to me the other day, you know, even from a loyalty perspective. We really say hello at the point of goodbye, It's only at the point of transaction. Do I actually find out who Amie is? Do I actually ask whether or not you're a loyalty member with us?

Do I understand whether or not you've got an account with us? Right at the point where I'm about to take some cash out of your purse. It's too late now. You've already done your transaction. You've closed that in your mind. You walk out the door. I don't get to then interact with you anymore, You've gone, right?

Those things that we understand, those journeys that we understand in a digital world, they're just missing in a physical world. 

Amie:

I was at Shop Talk in March and I feel that what you've said really resonates, because from a digital capacity, Australia is doing really well, but the conversations that were being had, on stage at Shop Talk were very much around the human experience in-store.

There might be a little bit of a gap really in terms of the investment from an in-store experience meeting that same level as the digital and then seamlessly integrating. 

Ben:

Yeah. So in my experience in talking to lots of retailers, everyone's recognised the bounce back to physical retail, you know, the need to go into stores, the need to actually interact as a human race. There's lots of information globally about that. What I see is retailers building more beautiful stores, malls then starting to become beautified, but technology that goes into those spaces has either been sort of, a little bit gizmo-esque. and so they're kind of ripping out the gizmos.

But actually what hasn't happened is things like the technology that facilitates the interaction between two people in stores, as well as the human side of that. There's no technology to support that interaction. And that's what's fundamentally missing. And as I say, you know, you'll see that in Australia, we don't even hit the top five globally for the installation.

Amie:

I think you can feel that. Yeah, I certainly can. Digital has obviously been the huge focus and now we need to bring that physical up to the same level. So they sort of meet, but not just meet. They come together, it becomes one, like true omni or maybe unified or whatever you want to call it, but, yeah, that's so interesting.

In terms of what you've seen, obviously Australia is doing well from a digital, physical not so, who's leading in the physical sense? 

Ben:

There's brands out there that are like killing it, there's lots of discussion around Mecca, for example. You know, again, their in store experience is really good. It's full of associates. They're willing to help. They understand their products really well. they provide a great experience, their loyalty program, they've really made some marks in terms of, you know, people want to get to a certain level and that certain level then creates a little bit of surprise and delight.

So again, you know, as a brand, they're killing it. But I would still say when you go to purchase, it's still very transactional. and so it's that transactional piece, which is really quite different. I'll lean on one of our customers in RM Williams. Their flagship store here in Sydney is just stunning.

Amie:

They've just been on the front cover of Inside Retail, I think, in the early editions of the year. Yeah, doing some amazing work. 

Ben:

There's some publicity by Apple that came out recently as well. You can't be within 10 or 15 metres of that store without smelling the R. M. Williams, scent, which you can buy, actually.

What's happening is when you go in-store now, they don't have a table, so to speak. There's no kind of, there's no, there's a different closing ceremony. When you sit down and get fitted for a pair of boots, their closing ceremony is all at that point. So again, the bags are hidden within the cabinetry.

They can facilitate the sale there and then with the person. you can add your own delivery address if they provide you with the phone to do so as part of that checkout process, they've engaged with Tap2Pay. So they don't need a separate EFTPOS machine. They can share a receipt digitally, so you don't have to print stuff out on the receipt printer. They are then, that process in itself has zero friction in it. Not only that, if they don't have your size, they can easily order a different size from anywhere else in the country across their entire stock landscape.

And so then that just gets delivered to you. And then it gets delivered to you. It gets delivered in a beautiful box, right? And so the unpacking experience is also stunning as well. So all the way through that process. You know, those concepts of, you know, well, it's if it's digital to get shipped for you, well, the packaging process is amazing, right? 

Well, the same thing can now be engaged with, in and through store. So, we're starting to see the nature of retail just kind of start to shift from that perspective. And, you know, given that I've had lots of people come up to me and start to talk about the RM Williams kind of experience and almost like, you know, what's the secret sauce that sits behind that.

And it's really because you're enabling technology into the hand of the store associates so they can do their jobs better. 

Amie:

And what type of impact does this type of elevated frictionless experience have from a customer standpoint?

Ben:

Yeah. I think again, what's really interesting is that those that have talked to me about their experience are always intrigued by, they're still intrigued by the experience, right?

Because it's quite different from other retail scenarios, I'm not standing in a queue. We're three or four deep. You know, I'm not interacting with one person sitting on the other side of the counter. I'm standing here. I can't see everything. Everything's on screen. And as I say, that concept of, you know, do you have an email? Yes. What's your name? You kind of have to spell it three times. Now that process is full of friction, whereas consumers, whether they're in the retail environment or whether they're just consumers, they go into an RM store and they just love the experience that they get. It's quite different.

Amie:

It’s so brand focused.

Ben:

Absolutely. 

Amie:

There's nothing pulling away from that. Yes. I agree. It's so good to see. 

Ben:

And it's one of those things as a consumer, once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. Right. And so then you walk into every other store and then you kind of working out, well, why is this so broken compared to that experience that I'm having in, you know, whether it's Laundry Jane or RM or some of those guys.

Amie:

Yeah. It's so interesting to understand how many brand advocates that there are for RM Williams post this, you know, roll out of the new format and sort of like an identity almost it feels, but I believe that they've, they've got quite a few.

One of the key areas of focus for the report was mobile commerce. Despite the popularity of mobile commerce, brands are not investing in native shopping apps.

What are the biggest challenges retailers face in creating successful mobile apps? 

Ben:

I always sort of look at history, and history is a strong predictor of the future as they say,

So again, we kind of went from, You know, Ecom 1. 0, when it was like, right, we're building everything from an online perspective, And then suddenly, and then suddenly the apps kind of invented themselves. So everyone started to build apps in a fairly rudimentary form. And then it was like, oh, actually this is a bit hard.

Now we're managing two channels. So they kind of went back to building more beautiful digital websites. And so then the question is then, okay, well, I've kind of went through that cycle. Why do I want to go back to building another app? Right. And I think it really also depends on the nature of the retailer and who your client base is and who your customers are.

it's not necessarily for everyone, but what I think the misconceptions are is back in the day when you were building an app, you were building it from scratch, it wasn't like building an ecom website where you've got platforms out there that enable that quite quickly when you're building an app, it was like, right, we're starting from scratch.

Whereas now we're starting to see app platforms come through that then start to look like wrappers around the website and then create and give that content in a much more usable, immersive form to consumers, So as a consumer, again, I've got to work out then, where do I again want to engage the brand?

Again, we talk to, is it digital, is it physical, or is it personal? Well, when it's on my app, on my phone, If I've gone to the trouble of downloading it, I like your brand. But also, like, make it usable. Like, give me information that's kind of personal to me. What's my loyalty status? What's my order history?

All sitting within the app. How can I have a more immersive experience? You already know who I am. I'm already logged in, I don't particularly want to see a whole bunch of irrelevant items. We can start playing with those apps to cross over the digital to physical world, right? 

Amie:

Yeah. 

Ben:

When I walk into a store, Limit the stock that's in this store onto what I can see on the phone, let me scan items, add it to my own checkout, and let me go through some sort of self checkout-esque type process.

So again, you know, I can do, if I can do all that stuff on an app, like Happy Days, if you're just going to give me a representation of your website. Maybe that's not so great. And maybe it's a bit more relevant. So I think the other relevancy comes down to how much do you want to invest? What's your strategy plan to have an app, a new engaging channel?

Amie:

And being part of the integrated business model, I suppose, because I feel like sometimes we, I mean, I think Inside Retail at one point in time was actually guilty of this.

I don't think I should probably even say this in a podcast, but I will, created an app, but we created it because we thought it needed to be done. As opposed to it being part of, this was many moons ago, being part of the content rollout strategy and being part of the way that we're engaging with our audience.

It was very much, okay, this is another way to communicate. and I think sometimes we get stuck in that zone. and it's not something that is seen as so integrated. Even from promoting the app, making sure that people know it exists, that are engaging with it, using it, pushing it people to the app from email. Where are people going wrong once they've got it? 

Ben:

Yeah. Yeah. So I think again, you've got to work really hard in your acquisition strategy, like how do you get people to download it? I always kind of love that there was the story around culture kings, when he got annoyed with Facebook, he bought a Lamborghini stuck in a store, right?

And said, if anyone downloads my app, you get a shot of winning the Lamborghini. He saved a fortune on his advertising. Now we could communicate directly with consumers that are downloading the app and he kind of gave them a reason for, he gave it a reason for living. So his acquisition strategy was exemplary. Then keep them on the path, keep it living. we look at everything from, how can I live stream a fashion show, and then add product into that fashion show so you can buy it straight off the catwalk. How can I create video or video content that you can kind of then utilise?

How can I kind of beautify that experience? Because with an app, you should be able to, I could literally take it out of pocket, go into the app, it already knows I'm there, I could look at a product, add to cart, and buy it. It's literally a three stage checkout. It's different to, if I go online and therefore I need to log in because I'm on an unsecure browser, I go online, I need to log in, right?

Once I get there, I go and try and, you know, browse to the page that I want, I find the thing that I want, I add it to cart. And then I have to go through a process of adding my delivery. You know, there's, there's all sorts of bits of friction in that process. So what could be seven steps online is only three steps in and out.

So, you know, again, but you've got to promote that a little bit, right? You know, again, and also then, you know, if you've got other content, you know, whether that's be magazines, video content, you're producing adverts that you're making and you're adding product into those things again, if you're going to surround a consumer with your brand, you know, squeeze that funnel into what it could be, a consumer app.

That you then really engage with the consumer on and make it again, easy for them. 

Amie:

And these people have already downloaded, they've already bought in. It's so much easier to resell to them than it would be to acquire a new customer. It makes so much sense, but, seems to be maybe a second thought in comparison to the website or whatever it might be. 

Ben:

Yeah, that's right. Again, you've gotta have a strategy around it, right? Yeah. It can't just be strategy, a thing that you push out there. You know, when you talk to Inside Retail and you create an app, it's like, well, that's just the thing to do. Everyone's gonna download and then people are gonna read it.

Amie:

I wasn’t here then I can’t, it's like, well, I imagine there might have been some thought to it. I feel like someone might come back and say…

Ben:

And I, I think what you'll find is everybody had a failed app experience, right?

Amie:

Yeah. 

Ben:

And then it's kind of that definitely, you know. Once burnt, you know, twice shy kind of thing.

Whereas now I think there's just more that you can do. As I say, I can bring in customer service data. If you've got a ticket open with us, how do I give you visibility of that? I can look at all your previous orders. Therefore I've got all your digital receipts. Therefore I don't need a physical receipt when I go and return something in store. So all of those things then start to play, especially if you then start to use it from an in-store perspective. Yeah. We have the concept of bring it to me. If I'm in a changing room, I can send a message to a, to the social app in the store and say, instead of, you know, size 34, bring me something else. Or instead of my size 13, can you go and get me a, you know, size 13 and a half. Yeah, yeah. 

Amie:

Instead of awkwardly hanging out the-

Ben:

Excuse me. Say, excuse me. 

Amie:

Excuse me, excuse me. We all hate it. It seems so easy to avoid. 

Ben:

And so, you know, going back to the report, the omnichannel aspect of that, and it starts to round out that picture. Don't just leave it isolated. bring into the fold. So again, that's why I talked to the triangulation around consumers, physical, digital, personal. 

Amie:

And it seems like you can have that moment, no matter which channel you're talking about. Because it should all be, all be coming together. Another big area of focus of the report is the lack of digital features in store. Connecting the online and offline worlds. What are some of the big wins for retailers, particularly in Australia, when it comes to using digital tools to improve the physical shopping experience? 

Ben:

As a brand, you're very proud of the product that you've produced, right?

So I start thinking about, well, the lifecycle of that product, you know, lots of retailers, you know, we're on the sustainability journey. So again, if I walk into a store and I scan a ticket, using the brand's app, and then it starts to give me product information, product details. It could give me better images, different imagery, rather than looking at a static item.

I can now see in context, I always talk to the, you know, the black dress, A black dress could be used for a day at the races. It could be used for a wedding. So then I can start getting a sense of the imagery that could sit around that kind of item. Right? So that physical experience now can be enhanced because all I'm doing is basically scanning your ticket, right? And then I can look for sizes, right? If I'm in-store and I just want to purchase it again, I'm then starting to go through a more of a self checkout type process.

If I want it delivered to me, or if I'm browsing through the airport, I always say it's not everything you buy at the airport. You want to then drag along with you to the next airport or to your next destination. So then I could just have it delivered to my home. Those omnichannel things are based on me physically looking at a product, but then still having a digital concept in mind when I'm going through a purchasing process.

And so that crossover of what kind of digital elements we can bring in the store, just like the bring it to me example, you know, or looking at product, product details, alternative products. What goes with recommendation, recommended products, maybe it's even reviews, So again, I can look at a product and I can look at, has this been bought twice before? Has it been bought 200,000 times before? Am I likely to walk into someone walking down the street because, you know, there's a thousand reviews? So all of that stuff plays into the mind of the consumer. 

Amie:

When it comes to implementation of this type of technology in-store, what could be some level of resistance? Because it seems like we are not getting to the point where it is rapidly becoming best practice yet. What are some of the things that are holding people back?

Ben:

The macro view of retail at the moment is it's a bit soft. And therefore my levels of investment currently into tech, are probably diminished. And then there's the apathy, right? Well, I've got a point of sale. Why do we need another point of sale? Do I really need this kind of in store tech to support a customer journey?

Should I just train my associates better? what we're seeing really is the investment in the tech And the return that that investment can provide is huge. When you think about the different customer journey scenarios, when you walk in the store, do you want customers standing three or four deep in a queue only to transact or do you want to engage with your customer set?

Do you want to have a relevant conversation? Or an irrelevant conversation. Speaking of retailers, they are very understanding that store associates are full of small talk. Oh, you know, how's the weather? How's your day today? Most consumers absolutely don't want to engage in that conversation. Whereas if I could look at your browsing history, I could look at what you've bought previously. If I know who you are, if I know where, if I know that I'm having some additional information around you, then suddenly I could be like, why did you buy that? Or what's this? Or, you know, I was talking to a retailer the other day and they're like, you know, these things, our pillows expire within two years.

So just to be able to see that you bought pillows two years ago, therefore I can actually give you some advice that maybe you need some more pillows. All the way through to, you know, you bought that dress, six months ago, do you want some accessories to go with that to kind of brighten it up, change it, you know, that those things are more relevant conversations armed with information based on browsing history, previous orders, things that you may have bought before loyalty, loyalty status, all those sorts of things.

But I'm doing that at the moment you walk in the door, not when you're about to pay for this thing and walk out the door. Again, it's about arming that store associate with information. 

Amie:

It's so interesting because for the last, oh, however long we've been talking about personalization online, but we're not even thinking about that in store. To not see it applied in a physical space is so strange because with this shift to, what is the human role? The human role is soon going to be what is setting retailers apart. When you can make that experience so much more relevant by personalising the conversation.

Ben:

Based on information that's kind of relevant and, and having a relevant conversation. And you're right. You know, again, so we've looked at personalisation by throwing a bunch of data at a bunch of technology online in order to make sure that we've tried to get the right product in front of you when you go onto the browser, you know, try not to show your previous products. You know, we've gone all that through, even from an advertising perspective, you know, you go and buy a white pair of trainers and then I start showing you a whole bunch of white trainers. You know, how do we get, you know, all of that stuff that we've tried to work through from a digital sense yet we've completely ignored it in the store. Yeah. Again, what better thing to do than again, say hello to your customers as they walk into the store. Ask them whether they, whether they've shopped with you before and then, and then provide relevant information around what that looks like. 

Amie:

That’s where you're going to find your brand advocates.

Ben:

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, then I start talking about clienteling and again, store associates then who will know you. That you have been in the store before. Why don't they have a relevant conversation with you, you know, either over the phone or via text? Hey, you know, you were looking at this thing. This was out of stock. It just came back into stock. Do you want me to put one aside for you? Do you want to come in? Shall I book an appointment? Hey, we're doing, you know, an early store opening in two weeks time and we're getting a photographer in to do some fashion stuff. You know, you've bought a whole bunch of stuff with us.

Like, if I'm sending you those informations, that's highly personal, right? If a marketing engine's doing that, it's making a, it's still making a best guess. And so we're starting to see that landscape shift as well when we, from what we call clienteling and remote selling. 

Amie:

Yeah, that's actually one of the points that came up at Shop Talk. In quite a few conversations, was very much the humans and the store associates taking that next step closer to the customer. 

Ben:

Absolutely. 

Amie:

And obviously that has to be powered in some form of technology because it's impossible otherwise. 

Ben:

Yeah. Again, I was talking to a retailer about NRF and I was like, you know, what was a, what did you see that was quite impressive even from an AI perspective?

And he was like, well, people aren't really operationalizing AI. He said with the one example, he said, he went and saw the Gucci support centre and they're using AI to basically screen it's kind of level one, two, and three customer support ticket processes. And so then when it gets to the human, the humans now are basically a profit centre.

So again, they're the ones that are now interacting with clients you know, these 20 year olds selling 80, 90, a hundred thousand us dollar items right, to their clients. Based on messaging services that they're sending messages out and remote selling based on that clienteling aspect shifts a customer support centre from being an expense centre to a profit centre.

And so they're the really interesting things when you start thinking about, you know, what is truly personalisation. 

Amie:

What are some of the most exciting or forward thinking omnichannel innovations you're seeing in the retail space today?

Ben:

The world is talking about AI, generative AI, generative AI on the back of machine learning and large data models and all those sorts of things. We’re seeing them operationalised a little bit more at the moment. Back end, supply chain, inventory management, you know, starting to get more towards that space.Less so in terms of, the consumer front end, probably with the exception of marketing, right? Marketing and kind of using these tools, but from a personal perspective in store, still not seeing a lot. That's kind of truly relevant product recommendations, generative AI producing images using Dolly and content creation for online, They're, they're the main use cases. Then I'm starting to see things like RFID really kind of creep in, we're starting to see a little bit more self checkout again, generally enabled through RFID, inventory in itself. Inventory accuracy again is much closer to the mark with RFID, which means, you know, less miss picks, less out of stocks, bettering inventory accuracy for an availability to promise to customers. 

So it kind of affects the customer journey on that part. So we're seeing a lot of RFID kind of come into the landscape. And again, you've got to have the right systems in place for it to be effective. When I look at the nature of retail, quite interesting in that they want to provide an exceptional in-store experience, So again, we're seeing less stock on the shop floor and more stock being provided to consumers being based on runner tasks from back of house, So therefore I don't have to replenish on the stock floor. Again, that can all be supported by back of house. That means you've got smaller footprint stores. Again, they could be a bit more glamorous. You can do a bit more with them. the enablement of, those kind of pop up stores and starts to kind of play into that kind of theme.

And then that's really about brand and brand exposure. I think we're sort of seeing that in the short term. In the longer term Apple released their Vision Pro and not so long ago, and they're starting to do some really interesting things from a VR perspective.

Yeah. VR, I think, has been around for about five or six years, but hasn't really kind of entrenched itself yet in the retail space. I think there will be a wave, not yet, but in the, in the not too distant future where you'll find, for example, you could walk into a store that may have five items in there, but put on a pair of VR glasses and suddenly you've got the choice of, five thousand items on that basis, right? So I think there's going to be some innovation in there, but again, it will be like everything, those retailers that are really wanting to be on the bleeding edge will kind of be there. And then, you know, then you'll have the laggards that will wait and see whether it becomes mainstream or not.

One of the more important questions for most retailers is what are you doing at the moment to overcome what is going on in a soft retail market?

Are you trying to open more stores to sell more stock? Are you closing, you know, stores in order to be more efficient and sell stock from elsewhere? Are you flushing stock through at the right margin? You know, again, I'm always intrigued for retailers to start answering the question of, you know, the revenue gap or soft market or our forecasts aren't really going to be as high or retail bouncing back to pre COVID times and all those sorts of things.

And therefore the investment in that, and again, largely because I'm on the bandwagon of most retailers want to attach themselves to something that's going to provide them with, kind of revenue uplift. More so than just pure efficiency and I guess to the technology players out there, it's like attach yourself to a revenue model, not a process efficient cost model.

They're already cutting costs out of the business, right? If you attach yourself to that, you know, it's going to be hard yards, but attach yourself to a revenue model and then work out how you can change the landscape from the next 12 to 24 months on a soft market.

Amie:

Big thank you to Ben Cook from NewStore for joining us today on Retail Untangled. If you've enjoyed today's episode, make sure you subscribe using your favourite podcast app, and don't forget to rate and review this podcast. 

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