Global Retail Executive Council

Joining the technology and design industries: Viva La Evolution!

Once again, I had the privilege of presenting at VMSD’s International Retail Design Conference last fall on (surprise, surprise) technology and store design, this time focusing on how technologies can be used to unify the shopping experience across the touchpoints where shoppers engage with a retail brand.

After my presentation, a conference attendee asked, “Last year, you talked a lot about QR codes. This year it was augmented reality. How do we know when to invest in which technology?”

While the connection between typing in the name of a product, scanning a QR code and using augmented reality was perfectly clear to me (they are all incrementally easier ways to connect a physical object with digital content), I realized that it wasn’t clear to someone who hadn’t been exposed to the way technology and interface had evolved over time. In fact, without that key piece of information, a retailer might think that it had to choose between these technologies rather than have a strategy that evolves through them.

This conversation made me realize that one of the things that’s changing the most is the way that store designers are viewing technology: It’s moving away from being an oddity and is quickly becoming a core tool in the arsenal.

But as the tool sets become more integrated, the skills to wield them effectively are changing. Everything from the business model (who makes money when) to the relationship with the retailer seems to be in flux, all at the same time. And as practical guidance from some of our experiences at bringing the digital and physical processes together, I’d like to offer this five-point checklist:

• Normalize the business models and timelines first. Digital and physical design and implementation work on dramatically different timelines, yet both have critical path milestones that need to be clearly connected. This is compounded by different business models and which services are paid and which are overhead, so crafting a joint engagement takes careful planning and some candid conversations up front.
• Make IT your ally. Most retail organizations have some degree of siloing in them. Often, internal technology resources are imperfectly aligned under the “IT” banner, but this poses challenges when bringing digital into the store, since core technology systems like p-o-s and merchandising often impose limitations on what can be done with kiosks, tablets and digital signage. However, IT is probably already looking at or actively piloting next-generation technologies, and a new store design can be a perfect excuse to elevate the pilot.
• Double your project management budget, then double it again. The reality of digital/physical projects is that even internally, these teams are not naturally aligned, and the next-generation nature of projects means that far more communication and project management is necessary. Meetings are twice as long, get half as much done and need to be done twice as often. So plan accordingly in your budgeting to ensure that there isn’t a bad feeling at the end from people who didn’t participate in reviewing the project management budget.
• Everybody needs to change their perception of their role. We talked a lot at IRDC 2011 about digital paint, which is the digital projection of content into a 3-D space. It’s a great example of how creating an amazing experience requires digital designers to think like physical designers (by thinking of digital not as something on the flat plane of a monitor, but rather integrated into a three-dimensional space) and requires physical designers to think like digital designers (by thinking of surfaces and textures not as static but as moving and dynamic visual elements).
• The “great” idea collaboration is the easy part; figuring out how to shepherd the vision is hard. The first “aha!” experiences of the crossover of tech and design tend to be like epiphanies: eye-opening and seemingly very powerful, but still lacking the finesse and impact that comes from thoughtfully and creatively applying them. The discipline of design review cycles, iteration and project management is less sexy, but even more necessary when dealing with the increased risk that comes from trying something new.

Without a shared vision between digital and physical designers, where the overall experience a shopper has is jointly and creatively developed, all of the amazing technologies become nothing more than flash-in-the-pan tricks, wasting a lot of time and money and, ultimately, accomplishing nothing.

So when I think about the question of how different technologies evolve, it’s an important one. But perhaps even more important is the question of how the industry itself is evolving. We already know 2012 is going to be different. We’re working with store designers on actual projects, which, as we all know, is the true test of how far partnerships can evolve.

The art of using technology to enhance the store experience: a presentation by Taberna

Taberna Retail principal Jim Crawford presented at the 2012 In Store Asia Conference in New Delhi, India, on 17 February 2012.

 

The wrong way to merge online and store retailing

One of the examples I used in my recent presentation at the NRF Big Show earlier this week was a funny yet powerful piece produced by Google Analytics showing how the annoyances of online retail would impact the process of buying bread in a store. Several people have asked for a link to the original, so here it is!

 

Observations on the NRF Big Show 2012

Having just returned from three days at the NRF Big Show in New York City, I wanted to offer up a few observations on the show and evolution of the industry that we see in it.

First, a pitch: I did a short presentation on the Expo floor along with store designer FRCH on "Innovation and Store Design." We've got the entire presentation (including slides and video) below for your enjoyment.

 

Now, on to the observations!

1. The floor showcased the sizzle, not the steak. It felt like the old days of 2003, when phrases like "ROI" and "infrastructure improvement" were lost in the barrage of "store of the future," only this time we didn't even have the veneer of a business case to fall back on. Let's face it: the real innovators this year were Apple and Microsoft. Thanks to Apple, everyone now understands multitouch because they've used (or at least tried out) an iPhone. And thanks to Microsoft's Kinect, touchless gesture-based interaction went from being a complicated and costly process to something cheap and easy. So what did vendors do this year? EVERYONE seemed to have some magic touchscreen or touchless kiosk to wow visitors with. Guess what? Even without the glitz and glamour of the new touch(less) interface, kiosks cost a lot of money to deploy per unit. And the "retail math" that kept the store of the future from becoming the store of today still means that these solutions are almost impossible to deploy at scale. And worse yet, those of us who "watch" the industry are falling prey to the hype and lies again: the results of Intel's mega-digital-shoe wall were reported as generating 3X the sales of stores without the wall during a recent Adidas shoe launch, but without anyone pointing out the astronomical cost of actually deploying the wall in the first place. Note to self (and others): remember the cost side of ROI when talking store technology. It's not 1999 anymore.
2. Conspicuously absent: the hype around mobile. Yes, there was some buzz and a few announcements around mobile, but no where near even the hype of last year's observation that the hot buzzwords of NRF 2011 were mobile and social. Payments continue to be the focus (not surprisingly... because it's the area where vendors can make money), while more tangible (read: less profitable for vendors) technologies like QR were ignored, despite the FAR more rapid timeframe for positive ROI for retailers. Oh, and for all the vendors who pointed to Japan as an example of how rapidly NFC can be adopted, do your homework. Japan is on a homogenous technology platform for the network (GSM), barcodes (QR) and NFC (Sony Felica). The US is fragmented across ALL of those, and without a massive shift in national technology policy (which, let's face it... ain't gonna happen), we will continue as a nation to put short term corporate profits ahead of national technology infrastructure development. Without a SINGLE AND UNIVERSAL STANDARD for NFC, adoption will be anemic at best. 
3. One small step for the international lounge, one giant leap backward for the industry. That's right, the Design Studio which graced the upper level of the Javitz Center the past few years is gone, replaced with a (much) expanded international attendees lounge. While it's great that attendees visiting from outside the US had such a spacious area to congregate and sit down (note to NRF: how about something like that for us natives too? We're tired of squatting in the hallways next to power outlets to charge our phones or talk with one another), killing the Design Studio was a HUGE mistake. Now more than ever, the intersection of design and technology is CRITICAL, and making the NRF into a pure tech show removes the rationale for attending for many of the people making decisions about store experience... Don't believe me? Look at it this way... you know all those sexy kiosks you saw on the show floor? Most of the difference between them and what we passed over in 2003 is either the $150 Kinect interface... or the gorgeous boxes designed by (you guessed it) store and fixture designers.
4. The bright spots. Even with my cynicism over the plethora of kiosk variations on the show floor, there were absolutely some examples of fascinating bits and pieces of technology worthy of a mention and exploration. Interestingly, this year they don't really have a theme to them, which in my opinion reflects more the... let's call it an "innovation pause" that we're experiencing: retail's been through a tough couple years, during which time the gaming, social  and mobile revolutions and exploded in consumer technology. The retail tech industry needs a bit of time to get the story straight on how iPhone + Kinect + Facebook = amazing success for retailers. So, for this year anyway, it's up to the retailers themselves to connect the dots between the interesting applications. We'll look for better "stories" from the major vendors in 2013.

This year's highlights:

• Fujitsu Advantage Checkout System - Yes, I know it's over a year old and hardly "news," but this high-speed scanning system looks amazing. Our thought: create a special "anti-express" line that's designed for customers with very large basket sizes. It's easy to forget that while cashiers in normal checkout lines do well with "mainstream" transactions, large baskets can cause just as many exceptions and delays as 10 items or less.
• FaceCake Swivel - I've said before that it would be a cold day in hell before I embraced a "virtual dressing room" for in-store use (that's what REAL dressing rooms are for!), but the 3D nature of this solution made it worth a mention. Unfortunately, having 3D models of the clothing requires... well, 3D models of the clothing... which few retailers are going to have access to. But for those who do, the "accessorization" factor of this solution makes it worth taking a look at.
• ZoomSystems In-Store Kiosks - You've seen the Zoom kiosks in airports around the country, selling Best Buy electronics and Body Shop cosmetics. But new this year was a focus on in-store vending, and though I'm not sure how much of the conversation was confidential (and thus I won't repeat it here), I can say I'm VERY impressed with the focus on business case around high-value, high-shrink items in stores, and how a reduced square footage footprint kiosk can solve both stock and security issues. These guys have come a LONG way the past couple years in terms of their focus on retail business case, and I think their in-store solution pretty much nailed it.
• IdentityMine's Multi-Touchpoint Solutions - IdentityMine is the Microsoft partner who has developed many of the "Surface" demos we've seen over the past few years, and this year they showcased not only a compelling Surface demo, but more importantly how it could connect into digital signage, in-store retailer mobile devices, and shopper-owned smartphones, all pulling on the same integrated back end. I've seen demos like this before, but this had the authenticity of real integration as opposed to "demoware," and the technology approach was rock solid. As the marketing organizations run into the reality of "just making the iPhone DO that," companies like IdentityMine with a structural approach to integrating multiple touchpoints are a must.
• Criti's Helios Augmented Wayfinding - Since GPS (and even 3G data) are notoriously unreliable inside stores, locating shoppers with smart phones to a sufficient degree of accuracy to enable wayfinding has been... problematic. Criti's Helios solution uses printed signage as wayfinding markers, and these enable a retailer to deploy low-cost signs (as opposed to costly beacons or WiFi points) that will let a shopper's phone optically identify the location within the store to within a couple meters, far better than the GPS signal. Helios then delivers turn-by-turn directions to get to where the shoppers wants within the store environment. This has some SERIOUS potential.

I'm sure I'll consider a few others to add over the next few weeks, but these are the top of mind the next day back. If you have suggestions or things you think I've missed, by all means leave a comment below. Or feel free to email me (jimcrawford@tabernaretail.com) and definitely follow us on Twitter for more thoughts and insight on retail and technology.

Steve Jobs and his impact on technology, retail, and design

The death of Steve Jobs is a huge blow to the technology industry and is echoing personally through the vast majority of the people I know. While we’re all feeling the loss in terms of the impact Steve has had on all the devices many of us have used for the last 20 years of our lives (#sentfrommyiphone is a simple, powerful tribute appended to many posts and tweets about his death), those of us in retail have another reason to celebrate Steve’s impact on our industry, and those of us in retail design even more so.

 

Steve Jobs didn’t just bring us the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad… he brought us the Apple Store, the most lauded, most cited, most imitated and one might even argue most influential retail store concept of the past decade. At last month’s IRDC conference in San Francisco, I jokingly suggested that I’d love to see a conference presentation that didn’t reference the Apple Store as the paragon of design, service, product display, fill-in-the-blank. And as adamantly as I believe that the adoration of the Apple Store is, at times, a little bit over the top, you simply can’t deny the profound way in which it changed how we think about shopping for technology.

 

And for those of us who live passionately at the intersection of technology and design, for all the accusations of fanboy status and all the times we had to struggle to get our computers connected to corporate networks, Apple products truly epitomized the fusion of form and function. I have never seen another brand that has consistently created beautiful, functional products that are simple and powerful to use.

 

I’ve had an off and on professional relationship with Apple for 18 years, since the multimedia company I founded in 1993 earned our coveted Apple Developer status, and I’m proud to have been associated with the company and to have had the opportunities to engage with Apple in its retail presence as well. Embrace or eschew the Macintosh, it’s a great company that creates some great products.

 

And Apple is for all of us on the “tech” side of things a constant reminder of how to get it right when it comes to new products. The day the iPad was launched, I went out and bought a Nook at Barnes & Noble. My thinking was “well, if it doesn’t play Flash and have all the features I want from my laptop, why do I want anything besides an e-reader?” Fast forward a year an a half and I can’t imagine my life without my iPad.

 

Steve Job’s didn’t just create products, he created categories. From the iPod to the MacBook Air to the iPhone to the iPad, Apple defined both the benchmark and the market. And while imitation by Samsung may not have been the sincerest form of flattery, it was Steve Job’s innovation with the iPad that let to the news that may get lost today: India will begin selling tablets for $22 to schools, bringing Steve’s vision of tablet computing to those who never could have dreamed of affording it until now.

 

Thank you, Steve, for the profound impact you’ve made on my personal life, my professional domain, and my industry. You’ll be sorely missed even as we all continue trying to live up to your legacy of technology innovation and design excellence.

 

The New Digital Window

Augmented reality plus a mobile phone can mean a personal portal to store design.

The mobile phone industry is filled with buzzwords, many of them hurled confusingly at retailers in the hopes of convincing them that this widget or that whatchamacallit will revolutionize their business. “Checking in.” Local “deal of the day.” Mobile payments. SMS short codes. Over and over, we’ve been told about the “mobile revolution,” each time with a little more hyperbole and a little less actual proof.

But one mobile technology that does have the power to redefine, or at least dramatically enhance, the shopping experience of tomorrow is augmented reality (a.k.a. “AR”). Augmented reality simply means using the phone as a “window” to the environment around it and displaying digital information superimposed on that real-world view.

There are two primary types of augmented reality, each one offering retailers some fascinating opportunities:

1. Geolocation-based AR: Here, the phone uses two embedded technologies to know what’s showing up on the viewscreen through the camera. First, GPS lets the phone know its location (realistically within about 32 feet using current technology). Second, the accellerometer in the phone identifies which direction the phone is pointing. By combining these two pieces of information, the phone can display digital content that’s coded to a specific place overlaid on an image. For example, pointing the phone at the Eiffel Tower in Paris could show the Tower itself, but also (as one recent promotion did) a 3-D cow balloon promoting a French cheese. Or, since the phone knows where it is in relation to other locations, a shopper could see turn-by-turn directions to a nearby store overlaid on a view of the streets.
2. Symbol-based AR: With this technology, the phone uses the camera to recognize a specific shape and use this as a reference point over which digital content is displayed. Since this offers a higher degree of precision than geolocation-based AR, it allows for a more intricate or compelling experience. One great real-world example allows consumers interested in a Panasonic flatscreen to see how different models would look in their own homes. It’s very simple to use: first you print out the specific symbol (called a “glyph”) on letter-sized paper. Then you place it on the surface where the base of the TV would go. Viewing the space using a downloaded app on your phone, you can then select a model and see exactly how it would look in the room from different angles.

Both of these types of AR are well established, with several platforms and service capabilities that retailers can use to develop and deploy augmented reality into their own mobile strategies. This real-world technology is well supported across all the major smartphone platforms and can be integrated into retailer branded applications, as well. Consumers react incredibly favorably to the “wow” factor of AR and, with established tools so easily at hand, the cost of creating AR applications is relatively low.

So why haven’t retailers been at the forefront of developing this exciting new capability?
There are a few retailers experimenting with augmented reality. Tommy Hilfiger’s “GoldRun” application lets shoppers track down digital objects in a virtual treasure hunt. Both the Android and iPhone platforms feature several “virtual dressing room” applications for assisting fashion shoppers with clothes buying. But on the whole, retail has been slow to embrace the potential for augmented reality for three reasons:

• Lack of vision. Let’s face it, retail isn’t exactly known for rapidly embracing technology, and AR is at the leading edge of mobile these days. As a tool to create a shopping experience, it needs to be integrated with store design and multichannel retailing and used to express the nuance of the retail brand, not just as a “gee whiz, I’m using my phone!” experience.
• Lack of organization. AR falls into one of the unfortunate gaps in the typical retail enterprise: It’s neither fish nor fowl. So none of the established departments in a retail enterprise can really embrace it. And since it bridges the gap between the real world and the electronic, it must similarly be adopted by IT, marketing/online and store design.
• Lack of a business model. If it’s just a marketing stunt, AR can fall under the same promotion budget that pays for mascots and balloons in the parking lot. But to create a robust application – that truly leverages the technology, ties into other retail experience elements (like customer service, loyalty, promotions, etc.) and actually enhances the shopping experience and retailer margins – requires a deeper business model than most retailers have developed to date.

We’ll address the organizational and business model impacts of mobile retailing in subsequent columns, but for the time, let’s begin envisioning how augmented reality can reshape store design and retailing with a simple but powerful example:

Up until now, one of the basic principles of store design is that the look of the store is the same for everyone: A fixture can’t appear to be black and white to one shopper and rich wood and marble to another. Everyone who looks at a p-o-p display sees the same branding, the same promotions, the same offers and pricing.

Now imagine that every shopper in your store has a personal view of the environment. When she holds up her phone, signage and displays can literally change. One shopper sees product information in Spanish, one shopper gets a special offer based on her loyalty program status, another is guided shelf by shelf through the store based on what’s on his shopping list. Fixtures are no longer static, but instead come to life with full-motion animation, all based on the unique personality and profile of each individual shopper. The physical world of materials and fixtures now blends seamlessly into the electronic world of information and personalization.

This is the power of augmented reality, but as a concept, not a specific technology or platform. By envisioning how the store looks through this new digital window, store designers can begin to create the personalized, informed experiences that shoppers crave.

"Digital Signage" Game Changer

Digital signage is hardly a new idea in retail design. In fact, many of us have had the experience of walking through a store and upon seeing a particularly clunky kiosk or blocky plasma TV bolted onto a fixture thought to ourselves, "2003 called and it wants its digital signage back."

The biggest problem isn't digital signage as a concept. It's the tools designers think of as digital signs. The core underlying technologies that power visual displays have shifted radically in the past decade, yet somehow our vision for applying those technologies to retail design remain stuck in the past. But a new concept has arrived that opens a number of doors for today's store designers if applied in innovate ways: digital projection.

Recent advances in this technology have pushed the capabilities of digital projectors in two paradoxical directions, as the "big" have gotten bigger and the "small" have gotten smaller.

Big & Bold

First, let’s look at the big. Today's larger format projectors are capable of ultra-high resolution projection with enough light to show clearly in all but the brightest sunlight. When combined with the sophisticated 3-D rendering capabilities of today's computers, designers now have at their disposal "digital paint" that can be overlaid on both interior and exterior surfaces.

What makes this such an intriguing concept for designers is that unlike previous projection that showed on a screen (either a 4:3 or 16:9 widescreen), digital paint appears directly onto the environmental surface. It’s not constrained to a rectangle-box shape. This means that unique geometries, like curves and corners, can be digitally painted, blurring the line between what is "digital" and what is "physical" into a seamless design.

One recent high-profile example of digital paint was introduced into Walt Disney World's iconic fireworks display over Cinderella's castle. A Disney-based story is projected onto the front of the castle from a group of high-definition projectors. The digital projection literally blends into the physical environment, with characters climbing up towers and around windows and "fireworks" shooting across the front of the castle in concert with the real fireworks up in the sky.

Other designers have used digital paint on interiors, replacing wallpaper and signage with a projection directly onto a surface. Add enough projectors and you can even create a Star Trek holodeck-like experience, where every surface around the viewer is digitally enhanced and immersive.

Small & Streamlined

But just as projectors have gotten powerful enough to catapult the shopper into a 24th Century virtually enhanced environment, they've also shrunk down to tiny proportions. This enables designers to integrate digital projection into previously impractical places, llike individual shelves, displays, and wall-niches.

This evolution in projectors has lead to a slimming down in all areas, including resolution, brightness, power consumption and, most importantly, price. Called "pico projectors," these tiny marvels are about the size of a cell phone, and range in price from $100 to $400. They generally use LEDs or lasers in lieu of the traditional LCD technology to create colors, which results in a dramatically less-bright image. But they can be used to bring the concept of the "digital fixture" to life, allowing individual shelves, gondolas, and surfaces to display digital content from a tiny device to a roughly 15-square-foot area.

Pico projectors can also be integrated into any type of fixture design and, similar to digital paint, are not limited to rectangular shapes. The low light output of pico projectors mean that light escaping the "edges" of irregular shapes isn't noticeable, and some types even have an infinite focal plane that can wrap around any shape, so instead of a “flat screen,” retail fixtures like mannequins, columns, and 3D shapes can become canvases for video content.

The potential applications for the creative designer abound, especially when combined with business analytics and decision-making behind the digital fixture solution.  Retailers are no longer limited to static promotional signage in the store, as database-driven analytics allow individual clusters of shoppers to be targeted based on individual conditions. Imagine if shelves could display messaging based on whether or not the product was in stock, or tie-in with product promotions. 

New capabilities for designers

While designers have a long history of using texture, color, material and lighting in designing store environments, digital paint and fixtures change the game. As part of a creative palette, they offer unlimited ability to shape the visual experience, centered on three major shifts to the designer's toolkit:

1. From static to dynamic: Changes to content can be instant and made with effectively zero cost, so designs don't need to wait weeks for store associates to put up new signage when the content can change even moment to moment.
2. From still to moving: Digital paint and digital fixtures are not limited to still images and, in fact, some of the most compelling examples merge full-motion video elements seamlessly into the physical background.
3. From passive to interactive: Since digital paint and digital fixtures rely on some form of computing power in the background, they can be great displays on top of an interactive experience. While we'll explore next-generation kiosks and interfaces in an upcoming column, in-store digital projection can be changed with anything from an iPad to a hand gesture.

For years, designers have faced a choice on surfaces both big and small: either “digital” and square or “physical” with texture and color. Digital paint brings these two strong capabilities together for the first time, shattering the tyranny of the “or” and allowing surfaces to come to life through the seamless integration of the digital and physical worlds.

How advanced is the shopper of today?

She's much savvier than you might think.

One of the questions that frequently arises about the role of technology in the store is, “Who are we designing these experiences for?” And while this question is absolutely critical to designing great store experiences, it’s often answered flat-out wrong, leading to digital experiences launched with great fanfare and received by shoppers with, at best, a disinterested yawn.

Misunderstanding how technologically advanced shoppers have become over the past couple of years is one of the biggest mistakes a retailer can make. In part, there’s a generational tendency to think of anything we don’t individually embrace as less important than the skills we have mastered. Yet, while senior retail executives may pride themselves on decades of experience in merchandising or store operations and laugh at their inability to do more with a smartphone than check email, the younger generation that’s tweeting about a low price they found using a barcode-scanning app is more representative of the majority of shoppers.

In the past few years, shoppers have radically changed their relationship with technology, creating expectations for engagement, transparency and responsiveness that go far beyond what most retailers are providing. And many of the “next generation” experiences that retailers do create (“Sign up NOW to get SPECIAL DEALS texted to your phone!!!” or “Check out our FACEBOOK PAGE for the latest news!!!”) end up reinforcing the idea that the brand is out of touch rather than creating a stronger connection with the shopper.

So, how different is today’s shopper when it comes to how she embraces and uses technology? Here, we take a look at some of the data and statistics on how communication channels, expectations and shoppers’ habits have changed.

She multitasks

Today’s shopper doesn’t focus on one channel of influence at a time. In fact, a whopping 80 percent of consumers today will use a laptop or smartphone while watching TV. Disney has embraced this trend with “Second Screen” experiences, designed to run synchronized content on an iPad while watching a Disney movie on Blu-Ray disc. The idea that a shopper is either watching TV or surfing the Web is no longer true for the vast majority of consumers.

She’s connected

Today’s shopper is deluged with information. Dozens of emails and text messages per day, hundreds of channels of television and a nearly unlimited buffet of Web information all clamor for her attention. But she isn’t just listening to this flow of information; she’s creating it.

Each week, more than one billion tweets are sent out by Twitter users. And of these billion tweets, 20 percent are related to shopping, either requesting or providing information about product purchases. That’s a lot of traffic talking about what to buy. It also illustrates that, for the most part, today’s shopper isn’t asking retailers for this information, she’s asking her peers because …

She doesn’t trust you

Shoppers trust each other – not necessarily those selling products to them – and today’s technology gives them the power to engage directly with one another, even in the midst of the shopping experience. The number one driver for consumer electronics purchasers? Personal experience (58 percent), with word of mouth (51 percent) close behind. This means the ways retailers and brands touch shoppers – direct marketing (21 percent) and advertising (17 percent) – are far less impactful than the social tools shoppers are using to connect with one another.

Reviews and ratings by other shoppers are also more trusted than the information provided by product manufacturers. Seventy-five percent of consumers think companies don’t tell the truth about the products they advertise, while products with posted reviews have a 20 percent lower return rate than unreviewed products.

She expects more, cheaper and faster

The expectations for a perfect shopping experience are rising faster and faster. For example, shoppers in the U.K. are now willing to wait only two minutes in a checkout queue, down from five minutes just four years ago. Sixty-seven percent of them have walked away from a purchase because they weren’t willing to stand in line, and 51 percent won’t even go into a store if they see a long checkout queue.

Couple this with the fact that, every shopper today is a “value shopper,” concerned with (and knowledgeable about) how much things should cost, and the expectation for fast service, good prices and quality is higher than ever.

The Bottom Line

Today’s shopper is more demanding, informed and connected than ever before. And it’s not a bunch of early-adopter, gadget-freak young ’uns skewing the demographic statistics. Retailers and designers creating technology-enabled experiences need to remember that the bar is a lot higher to impress 30-year-old women shopping with smartphones than it is to impress a roundtable of jaded (and often older and less technologically sophisticated) retail executives.

In August, we’ll explore a technology that will impress even the most advanced mobile shopper: augmented reality, in which digital information is overlaid directly onto a view of the physical space. The shopper of tomorrow will expect these kinds of “magical” experiences, and retailers who don’t understand the demands of the shopper of today will be even further behind.

The Shelf Life of a Shopping App

In January, the 10 billionth app was downloaded from Apple’s App Store. This milestone was heralded throughout the mobile industry as proof that apps have become the dominant way consumers use their smartphones.

But behind that impressive statistic lurks a harsh reality – only 5 percent of those downloaded applications remained in use after 20 days.

However, shopping apps are proving to have staying power. In fact, 50 percent of shopping apps, to do things like keep track of lists, scan barcodes, deliver coupons, check prices, find products, etc., were still in use after 30 days.

With millions of shoppers using these apps, some of the basic rules of retailing will need to be rewritten. Take Black Friday, for instance, the most heavily advertised and promotion-centric day of retailing. In 2010, 64 percent of smartphone owners used a shopping app to compare prices. That makes the millions traditionally spent in advertising and discounts far less effective at influencing a shopper with instant access to all your competitors’ prices.

Buzzword Bingo "For a Cause": Social + Retail + Charity = ???

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are looking forward to 2011! I thought it was fun reading so many posts on 1/1/11 by my friends on Facebook that were adamant that 2011 WILL be better. "It HAS to be better!" they implore. It couldn't get worse right? Preliminary holiday numbers show that "it's getting better" is the mantra of retailers this season.

Well, to some degree I agree with them that 2010 was tough and I'm glad it's over too. But on a deeper level, all in all, it wasn't that bad and I think that despite a lot of things blamed on the economy, some great things came out of it.

For one, I witnessed a lot of people helping each other out - especially through Facebook, the enfant terrible of social media. Friends helping friends find jobs, being supportive through divorce, illness or even the death of a loved one were commonplace. Many of these situations were very difficult, but it was comforting to see people reaching out to one another and making a difference.

It was only a few years ago that we never had visibility into so many people from our past and present all at one time. It's amazing and I personally agree with the choice of Mark Zuckerberg (founder and CEO of Facebook) as Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2010.

But the most significant social outreach I witnessed in 2010 was without a doubt the response to the disaster in Haiti. It's sad that when you look on CNN today you don't hear a word about it... but the groundswell of charitable giving that came immediately after the earthquake was incredible.

What I want to believe is that the support for Haiti and the large amounts of  aid that were created to help the victims are just the beginning of the "new normal" in charitable giving, so I'm going to offer a couple observations on how retail can play a bigger role in this phenomenon.

1. Do good by doing well.

The old saying is that you will "do well by doing good." In other words, if your heart is pure and you do good, eventually profit and success will follow. Retailers need to remember that staying true to your core values goes hand in hand with being profitable and serving your customers. Embracing the latest cause celebre will not get you anywhere. Your connection to charity needs to resonate with the brand. It makes sense for Whole Foods to donate money to local food programs: they buy a lot of their food locally. Patagonia and REI supporting conservation initiatives? Spot on. But shoppers can spot hopping on the bandwagon a mile away, and they don't like it.

2. Charity starts at home.

It's inspiring when the world comes together to help in global tragedies like Haiti or the 2004 tsunami. But other than the customers of a handful of truly global retailers, most shoppers will care more when they can see the results. One local retailer here in Portland chose something simple but amazingly impactful: donate a coat, get 20% off. Anyone who has ever driven past a homeless person in the cold rain will connect with this simple, heartfelt and local effort.

3. Don't guilt your shoppers.

Safeway has done an admirable job of raising money for breast and prostate cancer research. But... No one wants to have the pinpad ask me electronically if I want to "round up"... then be asked AGAIN by the cashier if I'm sure I don't want to "round up"... Over-asking for gifts is a faux pas no matter how admirable the cause. Ask ONCE and make sure that NO ONE feels guilty or awkward declining. Remember that bad economy of 2007-2010? Charity begins at home, but so does saving money. And alienating shoppers by asking too hard is a poor idea.

A side note: if you promote your charitable causes, embrace transparency. A simple Google of "safeway rounding up buzz" yields a host of negative comments about both how the money was raised and what it was spent on.

4. Choose a passion, not a pasttime.

This post comes on the eve of one of the most amazing charitable events in the retail industry. A group of analysts, tech vendors, and retailers is coming together on Saturday for the Retail Orphan Initiative's "Super Saturday" event. This single day will raise almost $300,000 for orphan-related projects around the globe.

Why is this group successful? Because everyone who touches it has their own reason for embracing the cause. It's not a "corporate donation," it's a mission.

Authenticity counts. And being authentic, respectful, connected and local will ensure that retail + social + charity = amazing.

PS - If you'd like to support the efforts of the Retail Orphan Initiative, click here.

Black Friday #retailfail and #retailfabu: A Retail Report on the Early Winners and Losers

Every retailer is anxious this year. Many think they've got just one shot at it and their pulling out all the stops. SOME will do well, others unfortunately will crash and burn.

LOSERS (aka #retailfail)

• TJ Maxx - Offer $100 off the price of the iPad to shoppers on Black Friday. Steve Jobs responds: "TJ Maxx isn't authorized reseller".
• Banana Republic - Decides to be open ON Thanksgiving in many of their locations. When you are the ONLY ones open in a mall - where do you think your foot traffic is going to come from? However in locations where there are Sears stores, they be the only ones, Sears is doing the same thing after 85 years of being closed on the holiday.
• Lowe's - goes all out on it's Black Friday Facebook promotion, crashes website and angers MANY. So here it is retailers as a warning... if your mechanics of an offer aren't bullet proof - expect what you get.

WINNERS (aka #retailfabu)

• Target - buys the Twitter Hashtag #blackfriday
• Walmart - fighting the Amazon dragon head on! Free shipping on over 60,000 items online through December 20th.
• Toys R' Us -  pops up!!! Taking advantage of the proliferation of empty mall space / short term leasing expanding their reach with their Toys R Us Express Stores and FAO Schwarz branded pop-ups. With 600 pop-up stores, they double their national store footprint and gain a lot of new shoppers.

Have any #retailfail or #retailfabu to report? Share it here!