Global Retail Executive Council

New Year's Resolution: the death of paper coupons

There's something very compeling for me to finish out the year with one last blog post - even if it means slotting it in at midnight between what has been a month long flurry of holiday related and tiring "to-dos".

It should be no surprise, but one of the mother-of-all "to-dos" for me this time of year is shopping. Shopping like NOBODY'S business. By the time Christmas has rolled around the "fun" of shopping or pleasure of it has long vanished. This probably has something to do with the multiple trips to multiple stores made nearly every day over the past six weeks.  An average day goes a little something like this...go get flour for cookies I promised to make with the kids that I forgot on my big grocery store trip the day before, buy more Scotch tape after my 6 year old generously wraps one present with an entire roll, go on a cross-town quest to find the perfect jewelry box for my daughter and that DS game that nobody seems to have in stock - yet it's the only one my son wants!  Augh!!! Normally, I like to shop. Heck, at times it's my therapy. (See blog posts on shoes if you require confirmation of this statement...) But come November and December it's just not fun. I try desperately to plan my trips, determine my routes ahead of time, prepare my lists, and... collect my coupons - all with an eye towards being more efficient and fiscally shrewd. This turns out to be more difficult to achieve than not. Especially the fiscally shrewd part. It's the coupons that kill me.

Recently, I couldn't help, but notice a woman in the grocery store with a HUGE box of coupons. While I manically rushed down the aisle trying to find decorative sprinkles for our cookies, she was sorting and organizing in her cart a myriad of coupons. I passed her twice still not finding them (turned out to be on a holiday baking end cap! Grrrr...) and on my third pass asked her how much time did she think she spent organizing and sorting through her coupons.  She exhaustedly remarked a better part of a day and at least 30 minutes in-store so that she didn't miss any of the ones that were going to expire or that she wanted to use that trip. What the heck? WOW. I didn't know if I should admire her for all her work or feel terribly bad for her for all of the time it took. I asked her if I could take a picture of her box (thinking I would eventually blog on this) and she happily obliged. (Although I think she was certain I was a nut.)

So back to my point about coupons... (believe it or not there is one)

The last few weeks have seen a flurry of coupon related announcement and news stories as retailers raced to get that last little bit of revenue recognized for 2009. But increasingly, these coupons - as valuable as they might be - are going the wrong direction and actually leaving shoppers more frustrated. So as our parting gift to retailers for 2009, we offer the following advice on making coupons in 2010 suck less:

• Attention all retailers: offering coupons online that can only be redeemed by PRINTING them out and bringing them into your store is SO 2002... If you're serializing for fraud prevention, I can understand it... but if it's the same bloody barcode on every coupon, why can't you simply read the coupon off my phone (and yes, I understand the difficulties of laser scanners and cell phones... that's why cashiers have 10-key pads)? Guess what? I read email on my phone, so when you email me a coupon... that's where it goes. And guess what else? I CAN'T PRINT FROM MY PHONE. Sigh. I was in Michael's buying my son's last Christmas present, and was told by the cashier that they couldn't accept the coupon because "they needed something to put in the drawer." Guess that means another trip to return the present and redeem the coupon. Thanks for the convenience...
• Training your staff that people get email on cell phones is critical. A friend sent me an REI e-gift card, which was great because the email specifically made it clear that I could redeem it online or in-store. The problem was, the clerk didn't know how to redeem it, and it took far longer than it should for me to get my new running gloves. More and more shoppers will be bringing in email coupons on their cell phones, so simply telling them "no" or "ummmm... how do you do that again?" won't hold up in 2010. 
• With much hoopla, A&P announced it was offering printable coupons from their Web site. Why do I need to kill a tree to get offers from one electronic system (the Web) to another electronic system (the retailer's POS)? What's next, making me print my text messages and flick them as spitballs to get them to my friends? I'm not the nerd here at GREC, but bottom line: printing on paper is unnecessary and bad for the environment. So stop making us do it. And my purse (when I carry one) is heavy enough without a messy pile of paper coupons in it.
• Don't go halfway and make it confusing for shoppers. Whole Foods offers "a selection of printable coupons" on their Web site and the rest in their printed in-store flyer. Right now, after digging through three layers on the site to find them, I was "rewarded" with exactly SIX coupons to select from and print. SIX??? And to top it off, downloading a PDF of the flyer (which promises "$40+ in coupons" boldly on the cover) gives a DIFFERENT four coupons for a grand total of $3 off. Now I'm confused, and REALLY annoyed because I don't know what to do to get my coupons. Keep it simple and easy for shoppers, Mr. Mackey! 
• And last but not least, Kroger and P&G have parted ways on the e-coupon front. The official story is over whose Web site got the traffic, but bottom line the shoppers' reactions have been the same: I want my coupons. Proof positive that in a tough economy the blame sticks to everyone.   

Whew! It's done... my last blog posting for 2009. Hope you got all your to-do's checked off and are ready to start 2010 with a clean slate. Thanks for reading our musings this past year!

Happy New Year from the Global Retail Executive Council!

The Retail Experience: Touch me, watch me, taste me and NOW you want me to do WHAT?

Recently I've seen a dramatic increase in the quantity and variety of interactive displays in retail stores. Though some of these have been the more traditional "kiosks" (and yes, we all know they're growing in number), many have been different form factors that don't fit into an existing tracked category of technology penetration.

Here are just a few examples...

KLEENEX: I'm walking through the grocery store and I'm encouraged to push a button to watch a short video clip of a mini ad.

SAFEWAY'S CORDELICO SIRLOIN STEAK: I'm stopped at a mobile food cart in the parking lot to sample a featured new steak that's available in the store.

COLUMBIA SPORTSWEAR:  I'm waiting to get through the security queue at the airport and the window display directly in front me has an enormous projected touch screen kiosk beckoning travelers to explore the newest in Sorel winter boots. 

THE LEGO STORE:  There is a special kiosk set up so that shoppers who can't find what they want in the store can order it online right there and have it direct shipped to their homes.

It all sounds so COOL and retail 2.0 right?  Well, maybe not. Let me explain.

If the entire purpose of these interactive engagements for retailers is to get my attention for a few minutes, then yes, they certainly do succeed at that. I stopped for all of the above, and there was a brief moment where my interest was indeed piqued. But... THEN WHAT? Each of these stories ends not with a purchase that put money in the pocket of the retailer, but instead left me scratching my head and ultimately walking away. 

And now for the rest of the story...

That video display in the aisle at the grocery store?  It was located directly in front of the product to be sure, but mounted at about knee level.  At that height, only my 6 year old or someone walking hunched over would even notice it, let alone reach down to push the button to trigger the video. And if you do watch the video (and don't run off screaming at the stereotypical "mom" portrayals), then what? No call to action, no reward of a coupon... simply the vague annoyance at having my time wasted with a message unrelated to the task at hand: getting me to buy Kleenex.

That steak in the parking lot? Despite the weather conditions, at first glance I thought this was a GREAT idea!  And... it was tasty steak. This approach reminds me a lot of food carts - and those are gaining in popularity all around the United States right now and are ALL the rage here in Portland, Oregon. On one hand, this was brilliant: they captured my attention right in the parking lot, before I even entered the store, and in fact... that yummy bite did get me thinking "mmm... steak..." They also gave me a "recipe card" sized flier with information about the steak and pointed me to the back of the store, promising more samples and information in the meat department. And if you do wend your way through the store to the back in search of steak, then what? No signage, no new information... and even a customer service faux pas as the guy behind the meat counter didn't even know anything net new about the promotion in the parking lot, jokingly told me he didn't know how to pronounce the brand of meat on sale, and (when pressed) even admitted that the labeled meat in the case wasn't even the same product they were sampling out front! HUH? What a waste of my time and their promotional dollars. (To top it off, when I got home and tried to learn more about that delicious meat... a Google search for Safeway Cordelico yields a whopping 91 hits... none of which tell me anything about the product... So, I'm not very likely to come back in for it another time.)

And then there's the airport. The way that airport security lines usually move, I'm definitely a captive audience while in the line, but I easily can't step out of line to a kiosk and still hold my place.  And by the time I get to the security checkpoint I'm certainly not pondering a new boot purchase. (Heck, with the 50 lb limitations and bag check fees, I can barely fit those kicky heels into my luggage, let alone a big pair of winter boots!) Great idea and a nice kiosk implementation, but beyond the momentary distraction, then what? I'm not buying, and I can't play with it long enough to make the brand more sticky to me... it just doesn't jibe with the realities of the target audience standing in the security line. Plus, though Columbia Sportswear certainly works in multiple climates, D concourse travelers headed for the Hawaiian Airlines flight to Maui sure aren't going to be thinking about Sorels regardless of the season. Definitely some confusion between the retailer and the brand. To their credit, I did see a fair number of kids going up and playing with it while their parents watched, grateful for any distraction, but it'll be years (even with today's allowance inflation) before they become shoppers themselves. 

And when it comes to distraction... the Lego Store takes the cake. Yes, they did have a kiosk set up for on-line ordering in the store. The problem is... it goes to the lego.com site... complete with all the online games hosted on that site. So the kiosk was constantly mobbed by kids, playing the online games (at full volume) and keeping aggravated parents wanting to order product fuming at bay. The kiosk was "retail hardened" meaning the volume was set and locked, leading one of the employees to tell me (after shooing my 9 year old son from the kiosk) that it's been very hard for them to control use in the store and clearly wasn't being utilized as intended. So if you're in the Lego Store and get tired of playing with the augmented reality kiosk and actually want to BUY SOMETHING online, then what? Clawing your way through a crowd of kids to spend your money on a machine may have been fun at video game arcades in the 80s, but as a harried mom on a shopping mission... no thanks, I'll pass on it in a store in the 2000s.

This leads me to think that retailers embracing interactive marketing touchpoints need to think less gimicky and lot more about the call to action.  If there were more emphasis on the store experience instead of the "gee whiz" factor, and communication between shopper and store associate were improved, none of the examples I sited above would have discouraged my actual purchase. But, as it stands, there are breaks in the shopping experience that lead me to drop off at certain points, and in each of these examples... I walked away unsatisfied and the retailer was left without my purchase.

As interactive marketing continues to grow and new touchpoints within stores and beyond multiply, retailers are faced with the same choices they have always had: focus on the needs of the shopper and meet them, or dazzle the customer briefly with flash and glamour and leave them unsatisfied and shopping elsewhere. New technology doesn't change that game, the rules are still the same. And the retailers who win will be the ones who give the shoppers a "then what" that helps close the deal and brings them back the next time.

Back from the dead: Innovative approaches from around the world to the battery life dilemma

Last month, as part of our continuing exploration of mobile retailing, we posted on the increasing problem facing heavy mobile phone users: short battery life. While many of us in the United States are simply told "use your phone less or differently," around the world there are a number of innovative solutions being employed to bring power to mobile users in less developed infrastructures that offer some key ideas for retailers looking to solve the paradox of asking power-pressed shoppers to use a phone with a low battery to shop in the store.

1. In Kenya, two entrepreneurs have come up with a mechanism to turn one hour on a bicycle into a full charge on a cell phone. While pushing a similarly equipped shopping cart around the store wouldn't generate quite as much energy and speed as bicycling (unless, of course, you're bobshopping), it should provide plenty to give shoppers enough power to stay connected and use their phones while in the store.
   

 



2. Urban malls which attract shoppers from potentially "unpowered" neighborhoods (Mumbai, Johannesburg, etc.) are using phone charging machines to quickly power up their shoppers' phones. Though the same concept has played out in US airports as well, the relatively low cost of the mall-based machines (in Abu Dhabi, machines use one dirham coins - about US$.27) and paucity of power alternatives make the mall-based charges more attractive. Retailers considering this approach to stretch power in their stores, however, need to remember: if the phone is locked in a charger, it can't be scanning 2d barcodes or displaying coupons.

 



3. Consider offering a "phonesitting" service for free. Retailers in South Africa have long offered free phone charging for shoppers coming in from villages without power. Why not consider offering phone charging as a free service during long mall trips? Though many shoppers would be loathe to give up even a moment of texts, tweets, and Facebook updates... if the alternative is a black screen from a dead battery, 10 minutes of charging while they browse your store is a cheap way to make yourself their hero.

 



4. In Uganda, charging a mobile phone battery at one of the ubiquitous kiosks on the street costs 500 Ugandan Shillings (US$.26)... but fully charging a car battery only costs 1000 Shillings (US$.52) and can provide power for radios, CD players, television, domestic lighting, and mobile phones... for a month. The same "power logic" would apply to a shopping cart-mounted battery that charged a customer's phone as they cruised the store while still leaving the phone in their hands and usable for shopping activities. 

 



5.  Just enough phone rather than just enough battery life. Nokia, focusing on emerging markets and launching first in Indonesia, recently debuted phones with up to 22 days of standby time. The phone has yet to experience the "netbook" phenomena where the average price point of a laptop plummeted rather than seeing exponential new features added to it. Manufacturers will increasingly view the "battery life versus performance" tradeoff as tilting toward more battery life and less performance, particularly as the power of smartphones increasingly eclipses the "average user's" needs.

 



6. Solar power cells are declining in cost every year, and while there simply isn't enough ambient light inside the store to power a phone, there is definitely enough space on the sides of shopping carts to provide substantial power to an onboard battery. Particularly in high-sun parts of the world where shopping carts in the parking lot sit in bright sunlight for hours of the day, this approach could both take advantage of government programs to boost solar usage and drive down the cost of offering on-cart power to shoppers in the store. It's not a complete solution (yet) but as Tesco says... "Every little helps..."

Target's pop-up stores: gallery of photos now on GREC Flickr site

Target has been a pioneer in pop-up retail in the United States, leveraging a strong brand - but a somewhat "suburban" one due to the store format and its real estate needs - into urban areas using everything from a ship moored in New York City to Bullseye Bodegas scattered around Manhattan.

As we watch the concept evolve around the US and the world, GREC will be bringing our readers ongoing coverage of some of the best practices in pop-up retailing, and we start with a gallery of images from Target's pop-up stores, both this holiday season's and from years past.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/globalretailexec/galleries/72157622982524076/

Point of sale on a mobile phone? There's an app for that...

The mobile wars just got a little hotter as point-of-sale has become the latest crossover from specialized retail equipment to commonly available consumer mobile handset.

That's right... you can now do point-of-sale transactions, including processing credit cards, on the iPhone. While there have been several "point-of-sale" applications available on the iPhone (and other platforms) the new offering from Twitter co-creator Jack Dorsey has taken a very innovative approach to transaction processing on the iPhone with the recent public announcement of Square:

• A mag-stripe reader plugs into the headphone jack makes the "hardware" compatible with anything with an audio input, not just the iPhone.


• New security features leverage the form factor of a connected smartphone rather than fighting against it. For example, the iPhone can display a picture of the cardholder and ask "does this look like who is using the card?"


• Signature capture is via the multitouch screen... Very slick.


• Receipts are digital, removing the need for a mobile printer, and the service allows easy retrieval of receipts online as well as email to the purchaser.
• Integrated "loyalty card" functionality rewards repeat purchasers.

In short, this is - for what it is trying to do - a perfect POS app. Yes, there are new features that could be incorporate and yes, there is the need for back end accounting integration... but this looks simple, elegant, easy to use... and most importantly, allows both large and small retailers the ability to take advantage of the low cost of consumer hardware. Given the success Twitter has had with a simple, easy to use, and elegant application - with intentional limitations in pursuit of those goals - Square looks like another winner.

TechCrunch posted a video of the app in action: