Five Things Retailers Need Technology to Address
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Amazon’s journey to completely overhaul the retail experience and commoditize the way consumers shop. Its priorities were, and continue to be, variety, speed and convenience.
So, what will the next 25 years look like? According to some of the retail startups that showcased at the Innovation Lab at this year’s NRF Big Show, innovation will continue to happen at the intersection of what customers want and technology’s ability to give it to them.
In the case of Amazon, innovation was all about rewiring consumers’ understanding of what they were allowed to want in the first place. Now that they’ve got the hang of it, technology’s job will be keeping up with their demand — and in many cases, refining and evolving it into a more sophisticated version of what they’d even imagined.
I spoke with five of these startups to see what they’re hearing from retailers, what retailers are hearing from consumers, and what problems they’re being asked to solve.
1. Retail Brands Need to be a Reflection of the Consumer
According to Gabrielle Chou, CEO of Allure Systems, consumers are tired of seeing models pose wearing only one size of clothing. Successful retailers will now need to be able to offer photos of models in every size, wearing every color.
“Diversity and inclusivity will become increasingly urgent imperatives for both brands and multi-brand retailers. Simply to protect their hard-earned reputations, brands will need to respond more visibly and consistently to customer expectations. At the same time, both brands and multi-brand retailers will realize that diverse, inclusive, by definition more relevant images help to convert more browsers into shoppers,” said Gabrielle.
2. Retailers Need to Move Beyond Surface Personalization
Mass manufacturing saw the standardization of products but now technology and manufacturing have evolved to the level where the consumer is demanding bespoke products.
Audrey-Laure Begenthal, CEO of Euveka, told me, “ in 2019 custom clothing to the real size of customers is necessary as consumers are demanding it and to avoid unsold stock; retailers will see immediate benefits as well as huge brand benefits as only producing what’s needed is better for the environment as it avoids excess production.”
3. Retailers need to Focus on Returns
One of the reasons shoppers love Amazon is their return process is so painless–the shopper’s home is essentially turned into a dressing room with unwanted clothing simply being returned. We are going to see more retailers and brands continue to make investments in their return process and even monetize it as part of their loyalty programs.
Patrick Eve, Managing Director of ZigZag Global, said that, “There will be a growing focus on personalization in retail in the coming months. This will primarily manifest itself in the personalization of products but will also influence payments and logistics as well. VIP and loyalty card customers will enjoy access to limited edition products, faster delivery and more convenient returns options, such as collection from home, and enjoy better payment terms and faster refunds.”
4. Tell Consumers What to Buy
One of the underlying reasons Amazon has been so successful is because it always knew that consumers want to be told what to want and what they could reasonably demand from their shopping experiences. This desire to be guided — or swayed in new directions — is not going away any time soon. It’s just changing format.
Consumers are already served ads based on their historic and real-time searches, but this year we’ll see more retailers producing content that targets what they believe consumers are searching for subconsciously, in addition to their overt and immediate needs. To the consumer, this will mean more instances of, “This brand might actually know me better than I know myself.” Or, “how did they know to target me with that?”
Mike Mallazzo, head of marketing for Narrativ, predicts that, “We can expect Amazon to move aggressively by beginning to publish expert content about products directly on Amazon.com. In doing so they will be positioned to lead the second generation of e-commerce.”
5. Scale Customer Service With Technology But Implement it With a Human Touch
Technology has introduced a heavy dependence on self-service into customer service, resulting in an entire generation that does not know what truly great personal customer service looks like. I’m old enough to remember going into stores where every employee knew where everything was and would take the time out to go out of their way to help the customer in any way they could.
An industry colleague of mine, Gretel Going, founder of jewelry brand Fortune & Frame, recently recounted a conversation that someone on her team had with a customer over the holidays. They had to write to a customer to tell her that the piece she ordered was out of stock, but realized that after sending the note, they had spelled the customer’s name wrong. So, they wrote back, making a joke about how tired the were from the holidays that they could barely spell anymore (happy face). Rather than respond to the fact that her piece would be delayed, the customer responded effusively that she couldn’t believe she was speaking with a real human who made real human mistakes.
This is a clear comment on how digitized customer service has become. This fact isn’t going to change, but technology-driven customer service will become—for lack of a better word—more human.
Bad customer service isn’t a product of people being lazy or not wanting to be good at their job but it’s that retailers haven’t allocated the time and resources into this important training. This, however, is going to change.
Jamie Fleming, CEO of studio 216, told me, “We’ll see retailers leveraging sophisticated virtual content to give training on role playing with virtual customers. This will enable technology to be more customer-centric and retailers to scale at a relatively lower cost.”¬
It’s clear that we’re heading into a new era of e-commerce, defined by a focus on what the customer wants, whether they know it — consciously or subconsciously — or not.
Online-first retailers will continue to lead the way with their proprietary technology, but these startups and many more have quickly caught on to what retailers need to do to stay ahead of customer demand.
Kieran Powell is executive VP of Channel V Media.
So, what will the next 25 years look like? According to some of the retail startups that showcased at the Innovation Lab at this year’s NRF Big Show, innovation will continue to happen at the intersection of what customers want and technology’s ability to give it to them.
In the case of Amazon, innovation was all about rewiring consumers’ understanding of what they were allowed to want in the first place. Now that they’ve got the hang of it, technology’s job will be keeping up with their demand — and in many cases, refining and evolving it into a more sophisticated version of what they’d even imagined.
I spoke with five of these startups to see what they’re hearing from retailers, what retailers are hearing from consumers, and what problems they’re being asked to solve.
1. Retail Brands Need to be a Reflection of the Consumer
According to Gabrielle Chou, CEO of Allure Systems, consumers are tired of seeing models pose wearing only one size of clothing. Successful retailers will now need to be able to offer photos of models in every size, wearing every color.
“Diversity and inclusivity will become increasingly urgent imperatives for both brands and multi-brand retailers. Simply to protect their hard-earned reputations, brands will need to respond more visibly and consistently to customer expectations. At the same time, both brands and multi-brand retailers will realize that diverse, inclusive, by definition more relevant images help to convert more browsers into shoppers,” said Gabrielle.
2. Retailers Need to Move Beyond Surface Personalization
Mass manufacturing saw the standardization of products but now technology and manufacturing have evolved to the level where the consumer is demanding bespoke products.
Audrey-Laure Begenthal, CEO of Euveka, told me, “ in 2019 custom clothing to the real size of customers is necessary as consumers are demanding it and to avoid unsold stock; retailers will see immediate benefits as well as huge brand benefits as only producing what’s needed is better for the environment as it avoids excess production.”
3. Retailers need to Focus on Returns
One of the reasons shoppers love Amazon is their return process is so painless–the shopper’s home is essentially turned into a dressing room with unwanted clothing simply being returned. We are going to see more retailers and brands continue to make investments in their return process and even monetize it as part of their loyalty programs.
Patrick Eve, Managing Director of ZigZag Global, said that, “There will be a growing focus on personalization in retail in the coming months. This will primarily manifest itself in the personalization of products but will also influence payments and logistics as well. VIP and loyalty card customers will enjoy access to limited edition products, faster delivery and more convenient returns options, such as collection from home, and enjoy better payment terms and faster refunds.”
4. Tell Consumers What to Buy
One of the underlying reasons Amazon has been so successful is because it always knew that consumers want to be told what to want and what they could reasonably demand from their shopping experiences. This desire to be guided — or swayed in new directions — is not going away any time soon. It’s just changing format.
Consumers are already served ads based on their historic and real-time searches, but this year we’ll see more retailers producing content that targets what they believe consumers are searching for subconsciously, in addition to their overt and immediate needs. To the consumer, this will mean more instances of, “This brand might actually know me better than I know myself.” Or, “how did they know to target me with that?”
Mike Mallazzo, head of marketing for Narrativ, predicts that, “We can expect Amazon to move aggressively by beginning to publish expert content about products directly on Amazon.com. In doing so they will be positioned to lead the second generation of e-commerce.”
5. Scale Customer Service With Technology But Implement it With a Human Touch
Technology has introduced a heavy dependence on self-service into customer service, resulting in an entire generation that does not know what truly great personal customer service looks like. I’m old enough to remember going into stores where every employee knew where everything was and would take the time out to go out of their way to help the customer in any way they could.
An industry colleague of mine, Gretel Going, founder of jewelry brand Fortune & Frame, recently recounted a conversation that someone on her team had with a customer over the holidays. They had to write to a customer to tell her that the piece she ordered was out of stock, but realized that after sending the note, they had spelled the customer’s name wrong. So, they wrote back, making a joke about how tired the were from the holidays that they could barely spell anymore (happy face). Rather than respond to the fact that her piece would be delayed, the customer responded effusively that she couldn’t believe she was speaking with a real human who made real human mistakes.
This is a clear comment on how digitized customer service has become. This fact isn’t going to change, but technology-driven customer service will become—for lack of a better word—more human.
Bad customer service isn’t a product of people being lazy or not wanting to be good at their job but it’s that retailers haven’t allocated the time and resources into this important training. This, however, is going to change.
Jamie Fleming, CEO of studio 216, told me, “We’ll see retailers leveraging sophisticated virtual content to give training on role playing with virtual customers. This will enable technology to be more customer-centric and retailers to scale at a relatively lower cost.”¬
It’s clear that we’re heading into a new era of e-commerce, defined by a focus on what the customer wants, whether they know it — consciously or subconsciously — or not.
Online-first retailers will continue to lead the way with their proprietary technology, but these startups and many more have quickly caught on to what retailers need to do to stay ahead of customer demand.
Kieran Powell is executive VP of Channel V Media.