Adjacencies & Disruptions – Amazon, Armani and identifying corollaries

Zeitgeist likes thinking about adjacencies. We’ve written about it before when looking at the art market, but it’s also prevalent in other industry sectors. Think of the UK übergrocer Tesco. The company has expanded into movie distribution – with Blinkbox – as well into banking and mobile, albeit as an MVNO. Why? To diversify its revenue streams; the grocery market is a cutthroat place of late; Morrisons recent conceding that it would be setting off another price war among its peers was hardly greeted with cheers by shareholders. How? By using the equity of trust they have built up with shoppers over the years, they are able to expand into other, similar territories, where their (claimed) competitive advantage of good value and good customer service can be similarly applied.

Amazon has been nothing if not a company constantly on the hunt for the efficient exploitation of adjacencies. A recent article in The New Yorker detailed how CEO Jeff Bezos got into books because he saw the market was ripe for disruption; he saw the Internet was the perfect platform to sell such a product:

“It wasn’t a love of books that led him to start an online bookstore. ‘It was totally based on the property of books as a product’, Shel Kaphan, Bezos’s former deputy, says. Books are easy to ship and hard to break, and there was a major distribution warehouse in Oregon. Crucially, there are far too many books, in and out of print, to sell even a fraction of them at a physical store. The vast selection made possible by the Internet gave Amazon its initial advantage, and a wedge into selling everything else.“

Zeitgeist remembers buying his first book from Amazon back in 1999. It wasn’t long before the company expanded into music, and from there into myriad other offerings. Like Tesco, Amazon found its original industry to be a highly competitive one – at least in terms of margins. It has become a fairly ruthless behemoth in the publishing industry, acting as monopoly in its rent-seeking tactics. The Kindle was an extension of its strategy to ‘own’ the territory of books, and as a publishing company itself it has so far had mixed success, according to The New Yorker. The Kindle Fire addresses its new media offerings, principally video. Just as a recent Business Insider article identified the Xbox 360 as Microsoft’s short-term ploy to encourage a customer to funnel all entertainment through their device before the launch of its successor Xbox One, so with Amazon and its Kindle Fire before this week’s release of Fire TV. The Financial Times featured good coverage of the device here, quoting an analyst at Forrester,

“It is a slightly faster Roku box combined with voice recognition to make search easier and then they have created a full Android gaming device. This puts the product into a whole class of its own.”

It will be interesting to see how the device competes with the much cheaper Chromecast, from Google, itself an exploiter of adjacencies. Google relies less on an equity of customer trust to move into new industries and more an innate belief that tech can be used to solve pretty much any problem. The search engine provides an affordable smartphone OS platform, connected glasses, globe-trotting balloons and driverless cars.

In the world of luxury, that essence of trust is treated with far greater reverence. This is principally why fashion brands have been such laggards when it has come to embracing digital communications and ecommerce solutions. tIronically, this approach, which by extension neglects a dedicated approach to holistic Customer Experience Management (or CEM) is arguably beginning to have a negative impact on how people perceive and interact with these companies. It is why adjacencies seem to happen less than temporary collaborations, an impressive recent example of which can be seen in BMW’s recent tie-up with Louis Vuitton.

It was gratifying to see Giorgio Armani, a company that has carefully crafted diffusion lines as well as adjacencies into hotels and homeware over the years, recently buck the trend, sending out communications over its newest line, Armani Fiori. While style can be eternal, fashion can be quite ephemeral – as with flowers. It’s not clear how much of a market there is for this. That being said, the sector is not exactly brimming with ultra-premium florists. And it might provide a certain level of reassurance for the man purchasing flowers, who can rely on the brand’s prestige to assuage any feelings of whether he is picking a good bunch. Where it might prove especially successful though is in the B2B sector; the lobbies of corporate headquarters and luxury hotels could soon be awash with the fragrance of a designer flower or two.

Adjacencies tend to work best then when they start by identifying qualities inherent in the brand as it currently exists. I.e. what is our current competitive advantage? Is that scaleable or transferable to a related field? Often, as with the cases above, such acquisitions and movements arise when traditional margins are being eroded or under threat of such. Prada, a leader in the luxury sector, has as that leader borne the brunt of strong headwinds recently as the sector as a whole experiences a slowdown. Its own adjacent acquisition? Last month it bought an 18th-century Milanese pastry shop.

Horses for main courses

The last couple of weeks have been far from slow for news.

The Pope’s resigned, Oscar Pistorius has been charged with murder after shooting his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day and then a meteor crashed into rural Russia. However, one story threatens to keep them all off the front page – ‘The Great Horsemeat Scandal of 2013’.

The Guardian provides a chronology of events so far, but in short, horsemeat has been found in a number of dishes that claimed to contain only beef.

Reaction has been suitably mixed, from horror to apathy. Some see the deceit as part of a larger criminal activity that conned consumers, failed to adhere to religious doctrines and risked public health and so must be punished, while others take the view that the meals tasted nice, and therefore think, ‘So what?’.

Either way, our trust in those who put their names to the compromised products has been eroded. So far, all the major retailers have withdrawn products, and Findus are the biggest brand name to be affected after their lasagne was found to contain 100% horsemeat.

Our historical relationship with meat is quite complex. In the past, how you saw it depended on your social status. If you were a peasant, you saw the animals when they were alive. So you called them, cows, sheep, pigs and deer. If you were from a higher social status, you saw the animals on a plate. So you knew them as beef, mutton, pork and venison. Note that the latter come from the French, a land of unrepentant horse eaters. But in English, the meat of the horse is simply ‘horsemeat’. We don’t have a fancy name for it, because it’s never really been on the menu.

But for all the gnashing of teeth, is this scandal a major surprise?

Everyday Value

Even before the recession hit, retailers were doing their utmost to be seen to be providing value to shoppers. Often that was achieved by bringing prices down. This is generally accomplished at the expense of the suppliers, who in turn look to make savings from the companies that provide them with goods and services.  Marketing agencies know only too well that negotiations with procurement departments are rarely painless. The same is almost certainly also true for meat suppliers.

When cost cutting becomes endemic and pressure gets pushed down the line, people look for new ways to deliver. It can be the spark for innovation – necessity being the mother of invention and all that – but it can also lead to corners being cut and standards being lowered. In this instance, the consequences are apparent.  Real damage has been done to the brands caught up in the scandal and they will have to invest to build back their credibility.

For shoppers, it has provided a wake-up call and brought the whole meat processing business into the spotlight. Far from being happy and healthy beasts, we now know that meat is sent from country to country before it finally ends up on our shelves.

Effect on Shoppers

For some, these revelations will change behaviour.  A survey by Consumer Intelligence found that around one in five shoppers will cut back on the amount of meat they’ll buy, while around three in five are more likely to buy meat from independent shops. Inevitably though, the indignation will wear off and in the medium term, the convenience of supermarkets will win back many of those who ever managed to find a local butcher.

The irony for those who do stop buying processed meat is that, just as someone who is burgled tends to react by improving their security arrangements, new regulations will soon be implemented to improve standards in the meat supply chain. These ought to mean that the standard of meat we buy will soon be higher than ever.

Beyond processed meat, there may be benefits to consumers as food brands in other categories take a closer look at their own processes to ensure they don’t end up making the wrong type of headlines in future.

Indeed, for all the unpleasantness, perhaps we should be grateful that while we have been tricked and there has been serious criminal activity, it was ‘only’ horsemeat that entered the food chain. Had it been something more emotive like dog meat or far less pleasant like rat meat, the damage to the brands and retailers would have been much harder to overcome. In the meantime, the whole episode provides a clear lesson to brands, retailers and shoppers alike.

Cheap often comes at a high price.

Tesco’s surprisingly refreshing offer on Coca-Cola

After enduring a series of rainy days that have seen Noah put on standby, the drenched British public could do with something to cheer them up.

Luckily Coca-Cola have built their whole proposition around ‘happiness‘.

In sunnier climes this has manifested itself through the celebrated ‘Happiness Truck‘, a branded lorry dispensing presents ranging from surfboards to footballs to free Cokes.

Sixpence of Happiness

With the economy double dipping into recession like a hungry George Costanza at a funeral adding to the misery, Zeitgeist wondered whether the UK team had come up with a more straightforward and practical way to raise a smile.

A recent visit to a local Tesco Express to stock up on some essentials for a night in found this offer where shoppers were actually paid 6p to buy a second two litre bottle.

Clearly the offer is retailer lead. Much as Coca-Cola might want to sell more product they don’t have to resort to paying people to take it. Assuming it isn’t some kind of error, it highlights the power retailers have over manufacturers.

If a brand as loved and powerful as Coca-Cola can be devalued so easily what hope do lesser brands have?

Despite offering shoppers a great deal the promotion doesn’t really work in the retailers favour either.

As a compact store on the high street with no nearby parking available, most people shopping there would have been topping up. By incentivising them so heavily to buy an extra 2l bottle, Tesco are limiting how many other full price items shoppers can carry home.

In fact, the only obvious winner here was me, with an extra bottle of Coca-Cola and 6 pence in my pocket.

I promise to invest it wisely.

The Devil is in the Detail in Retail

Retail, we are reliably informed by those who know, is detail.

That is to say, attention to detail is essential, and if you can take care of the little things, the big things will largely take care of themselves.

At first, this sage advice sounds most helpful and reassuring. It is only when you consider that a large UK supermarket stocks around 40,000 items that you realise the size of the task of looking after the little things is gargantuan.

And so assistance is sought in technical solutions capable of processing huge amounts of data and an army of moderately paid staff charged with keeping things ticking over and customers satisfied.

Inevitably though, automated systems lack a human touch and staff can have a low boredom threshold. This dangerous combination can lead to things that may offend or amuse and will almost certainly end up on the internet.

For example, having popped into the newly opened local Tesco Express, Zeitgeist was surprised to be offered a satanically priced washing powder.

Presumably ideal for a hot wash

While the link between the special price and the Number of the Beast may not deter too many cash strapped Brits, if Tesco want their global expansion plans to run smoothly they might want to pay a little more attention to the detail of numerology and the cultural significance of certain numbers in territories are planning to target.

Similarly, a couple of photos taken in-store of awkwardly labeled food have been doing the rounds on the internet lately and suggest that this is not an isolated case.

Clearly, the item description section has a finite space which can present a challenge when a product has a long name or many ingredients. Abbreviation is the obvious solution but again, failure to take care of the little things can spell trouble.

The first example, again in Tesco, was for Welsh Lady Assorted Fudge. It even offered Clubcard points. Unfortunately the label presented to shoppers looked like this.

No sooner had the fudge gone viral that an equally unappetising lunch offering began doing the rounds.

Given how obvious the humour was in the abbreviations, there is little doubt that mischievous staff have been having a little fun. If this is the case and the labeling is not automated or validated there seems to be little that can be done to avoid recurrences, much to the pleasure of web users craving a childish laugh.

In the meantime, we’d suggest someone goes and checks the shiitake mushrooms and cockles in vinegar just in case.

The Technology Paradox in Retail

In December, shopping transactions saw a 187% increase, year-on-year. This sounds like good news for the economy, and surely the high street. Unfortunately, this increase was purely for mobile shopping, as reported by IBM. Brand Republic, which picked up the story, noted “mobile traffic on retailers’ websites rocketed by 169%, meaning 15% of all traffic came from mobile devices during December”. The principal attractions of mobile commerce are easy to identify: it allows you to purchase items from anywhere with a phone signal rather than travelling into a store. It also allows the customer to shop around far more easily than would be possible on a high street for the best deal.

The drift toward mobile commerce, however beneficial and efficient for the customer, is part of myriad factors that are having a pejorative effect on the high street. Another, recently noted in a fantastic editorial in The Financial Times, detailed the onus shoppers must face up to, as a nation obsessed with the material quest for the very best deal possible. “We are all going to hell in a shopping basket”, read the headline.

“Through the internet we can now get relevant information instantaneously, compare deals and move our money at the speed of electronic impulses. Consumers and investors have never been so empowered. Yet these great deals come at the expense of our jobs and wages, and widening inequality.”

183 retailers fell into administration last year. The internet must shoulder a large part of the blame for this, as customers shift to the relaxation of shopping at home. Experian Hitwise reported that Boxing Day 2011 was the biggest ever day for online retail in the UK, an incredible stat (one of many covered by eConsultancy), especially while circumstances for bricks-and-mortar stores seem so dire.

However, while digital technology is keeping people from shopping on the high street, it is also helping it evolve. Recently, CNBC reported from New York on the National Retail Federation’s annual convention. Technology companies like Intel and IBM were front and centre, and willing to engage ever more deeply with brands. 73% of consumers were willing to share their demographic information with retailers in order to improve targeted communications. In the store itself, Macy’s has unveiled Beauty Spot, a digital mirror that lets you try on what you want, what is suggested to you by the mirror, and share your looks with your friends, according to TIME magazine. Also at the conference, Kraft featured a vending machine that featured face-recognition technology, registering your ethnographic details and dispensing samples based on that data.

The possibilities for clothing are significant, too. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft unveiled a prototype digital mirror for retailers. PSFK noted it “relies on the Kinect gaming system and basically allows people to try on clothes before taking their final selection to the dressing room”. Moreover, last month, the e-tailer Gilt Groupe teamed up with GQ magazine to create a men’s high-fashion retail experience in the so-fashionable-it’ll-soon-be-uncool Meatpacking District of New York. The FT has more.

Such movements are part of a burgeoning trend toward blurring the boundaries between digital and bricks-and-mortar retail. But for the latter way of shopping, the problems are immediate. An article in this week’s The Economist referenced a report commissioned by the government in December that claimed “one in three of the nation’s high streets is failing“. Places like Argos, Mothercare and Thorntons plan to close up to one third of their shops. Conversely, the magazine references a survey conducted by Saatchi & Saatchi which detailed 16-29 year olds’ feelings on retail. Apart from enjoying a good shop, “42% said that, if they were to start a small business, it would be on the high street”. This puts a desire to see an epicentre of retail / beating heart of a town against an indolence born of the luxury of being able to shop while in the bathroom. To combat this dilemma of desires, Anne Robinson-lookalike Mary Portas has made several suggestions as shopping czar to the government, including requirements for a “quota of affordable shops”. This idea is pure lunacy. State intervention in market commerce is not a road we want to go down.

While the article offers some hope, detailing the importance of improvements to infrastructure, and making space above retailers into shops again rather than flats, the major threat is from online retailers. Last week, the Financial Times reported solemnly,

“Tesco [will] call a halt on new hypermarkets, believing the internet offers the most profitable future for non-food sales. Retail analysts believe Tesco’s admission marks a watershed moment for high street retail chains. Many have already seen their business models trampled over by the big supermarkets, but now they must follow the leader’s structural shift towards online sales, or face extinction.”

These are dire times for retailers, but things will not improve until they fully embrace the inevitable march of technology, both in their stores, and in people’s homes. With another recession looming, now is not the time to bury one’s head in the sand and hope for the best.

On Mobile Loyalty

A little over a week ago, consultancy Analysys Mason hosted a webinar entitled ‘Mobile loyalty schemes: best practice examples and key learnings’. Zeitgeist listened in…

Speaking in the webinar were Tom Rebbeck and Helen Kapapandzic. One of the key messages in the webinar was the distinction between customer retention and true loyalty campaigns. Retention can be achieved through short-term measures (e.g. discounts), loyalty is about longer-term investment. Keeping a customer loyal can benefit both the business and also the end user. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal referenced by the consultancy, there are myriad benefits to longevity at work, in marriage and by staying with the same providers and businesses. Loyalty it was noted, however, can only support other elements of a service that must already be in place.

For telcos, the key is in reconciling operator wants with customer needs. In the telecoms market in the Western world, where seemingly everyone has a mobile handset of one sort or another, the strategy has moved from winning new customers to keeping current ones. The market is saturated with a flat if not slightly falling rate of growth.

Churn is likely to increase this year over last year in the UK, but not in France. When Zeitgeist asked the reason for this disparity, he was told the reason was that telcos in the French market had focused a significant amount of marketing specifically on decreasing churn. In the UK, the increase is due to the beginning of the expiration of 24-month contracts (such as those affiliated with iPhones), which conversely made churn decline in 2010.

The webinar continued with a roundup of some selected case studies currently being employed by telcos around the world. These took the form of either financial or social-based schemes, and sometimes both. Aircel, for example, was an invitation-only service, offering special invitations to events, exclusive offers, and worked on a points-based system. Proximus seemed to be the most fun offer mentioned, focused as it was on younger customers, who would always be incentivised as there was always a prize guaranteed.

Vodafone’s loyalty scheme, with sponsorship of Formula 1 racing and the London Fashion Weekend, is deservedly well-known. With a simple thank you, and no requirements to join, it serves as an attractive loyalty tool. The loyalty scheme from Starhub seemed to be one of the most innovative and well-developed, a Quintessentially-esque programme, replete with triple play offers.

While it is tempting to think of customer loyalty schemes for telcos as similar in construction to those of supermarkets, the reality is in fact very different, as the consultancy pointed out. Tesco’s enormously popular Clubcard, as recently written about in The Economist, is there for the business to get as much information as possible on customer buying habits, to the extent that it could effect your insurance policy. Telcos already have a significant amount of data that illustrates user behaviour based on a much smaller range of products (SMS, data).

Those schemes that didn’t work, which the team at Analsys Mason came across, were ones involving points-based schemes that were extremely complicated, and might involve getting out an Excel spreadsheet. This kind of thing can be too time-consuming, and ultimately appeal to customers who are already loyal. As a trend, some operators were discontinuing points in preference of social, or simply overlaying it to create social engagement. Of course, as we all know, the key to a successful B2C campaign is often about personalisation. The difficulty though lies in the fact that it is usually easier to measure top-up schemes than emotional ones. This, however, does not alter the importance of personalisation. Rewards to drive tenure, celebrate anniversary of contracts or personal birthdays are all small touches which could be much more widely employed, said those at Analysys Mason.

In all it was an engrossing and stimulating lecture on consumer preferences, technological development and trends in communication. Zeitgeist looks forward to the next one.

The (Deceptive) Art of Performance

On the way back from Paris two weeks ago, Zeitgeist was treated to a magnificent sunset as the Eurostar sped through the francophone countryside. It occurred to him how much more enjoyable the journey would be if the whole of the shell of the train were transparent, one giant window. Aside from structural engineering issues, this might also pose difficulties with the heat and light from the sun. Nevertheless, those hypotheticals did not give Airbus pause when it announced earlier this week they would be building a transparent plane ready for 2050.

Indeed, Zeitgeist has been thinking a lot about transport recently. In the past several weeks we have written about planes, trains and automobiles. The above spot, via Creative Criminals, for an M-powered BMW is a guilty pleasure, what do you think to its authenticity? These sorts of virals / candid shots / advertisements are becoming increasingly popular – though BMW years ago produced the perfect example –  as typified by the below video featuring a tennis player and a suspiciously nice-looking Mercedes. This is not the first time that Mr. Federer has shown off his viral-inducing skills. Could this sort of practice be extended to other brands? How about a blurry video of someone looking remarkably like Gordon Ramsay rushing into the Tesco Express that sits two doors down from his flagship restaurant on Hospital Road for some last-minute ingredients?

One question to ask might be whether the authenticity of the video even matters if it creates and stimulates discussion about the brand. In large part it is the aura of candour that provides excitement to the viewer; ‘this wasn’t meant to be released, you shouldn’t be watching this’, or ‘you are one of a select few who can’. As one blogger notes on a Mercedes forum, speaking to these types of video, “Fake, but I enjoyed every one of them :D”. And that, surely, is the point.

Where Next for Starbucks?

Zeitgeist first remembers popping into a Starbucks way back in March of 1999, in the wintery plains of Canada. Back then it was seen as quite an exciting prospect – especially for a Briton – to have the chance to sample a Starbucks coffee. How times change. Now they are everywhere, and the homogeneity and abundance has become such that they have taken to individualising some stores, first in New York in the summer of 2009, and more recently at the store that sits near Harrods in London’s Knightsbridge area.

As we noted not long ago, Starbucks recently underwent changes on a more macro level, altering its logo by removing the word “coffee” from it. The Starbucks promise is about “more than just coffee”. This means it’s about the atmosphere, the service, the experience. But it also means that the brand has free rein to evolve, to move into offering other services. Recently, the well-respected design agency Wolff Olins featured an article on their blog reporting on Tesco’s newest venture: getting into the world of second-hand cars. The short article astutely points out that brands are “defined less by what they do, and more by what they believe”, so it’s not unreasonable to think that Tesco could move into such an area, despite being known mostly for their grocery offering.

It’s entirely the same situation with Starbucks. Their brand is so strong (note ‘strong’, not ‘loved’ – Starbucks, like Tesco, is far from universally adored) that it can now make lateral bounds into whole other areas of industry if it wants to. And while the above ad that Zeitgeist just watched in the cinema may be about coffee, what’s it’s also showing is how the brand makes the customer happy. There’s a lot of room for manoeuvre there. Watch this space…

2011’s Retail Trends

Zeitgeist was asked at the end of last year to write an article on retail trends for the coming year. The following is an altered excerpt of the original article…

It’s surprising to read editorial describing us as still being in a recession. If you’re going to use economic terminology, then you have to listen to economists when they say the recession ended months ago. The trouble now is dealing with the aftermath – impending cuts and taxes. Evidently it’s not all gloom though, as new stores Dior, Mulberry and Miu Miu join the salute to capitalism that is Louis Vuitton’s Maison on London’s Bond Street.

Look for more brand collaborations. Disney’s venture with Tesco is bold and innovative… Savile Row’s Gieves and Hawkes recently installed a space for barber Gentleman’s Tonic, and vintners par excellence Berry Brothers has a concession for Lock and Co. Both instances suggest a deep insight into who their shopper is; useful for the brand, flattering for the shopper. With empty high street retail spaces, the time is right for sage collaborations, bringing brands added security.

Digital integration will become more widespread, aiding both in brand building and simplifying the customer journey. More people are expected to be surfing via phones than computers by 2015. This swing constitutes an immediate opportunity for retailers and marketers. Since helping Obama to victory, crowdsourcing has only gained in popularity. The Louvre recently fundraised through thousands of individual donations online to buy a coveted Renaissance painting. The power of many, prognosticated in “The Wisdom of Crowds”, is driving ideas like Groupon, as well as its subsequent offer for purchase by Google.

It’s going to be a make-or-break year for Foursquare et al. There have been interesting campaigns by all sorts, from Marc Jacobs to McDonald’s. What’s missing is seamless integration of these services with retail environments. ‘Checking-in’ has got to become a utility for shoppers outside London, New York and San Francisco. Currently, opportunities to create conversations are being missed.

Twitter’s retail presence will continue to grow, evinced by Best Buy’s Twelp Force and Debenham’s Twitterers flitting about stores. Multi-platform interaction can be enhanced by the physical retail environment: Diesel pulled off a fun gimmick last year with a screen outside the changing room allowing customers to upload a photo of themselves to Facebook to query friends on their clothing choice. Neiman Marcus recently merged online and in-store inventories, a great idea that others should emulate. Allowing people to browse products in-store on an LCD screen without the pressure of exasperated sighs from sales assistants can make shopping enjoyable and convenient. Chanel’s Manhattan flagship has such functionality; it could be of equal use at B&Q.

Getting someone to linger in your space and mention the experience to others is what counts. Pop-ups, if they serve a purpose rather than being a gimmick, can be a tremendously effective – not to mention fun – tool. Don’t underestimate fun. Emphasising convenience alone means most people – especially when the odd flurry of snow arrives – will shop online at home. There must be an element of excitement, innovation. This can be escapist, like Secret Cinema, or pure enjoyment like Muji’s vending machine (see top photo). Pop-ups can provide an excuse for an otherwise serious brand. They help in getting a message to new audiences (Gagosian’s pop-up), or taking the store to the customer (Natwest’s mobile truck).

So, more collaborations, more digital and more pop-ups; so what’s new? As William Gibson once said, “The future is here, it’s just not very evenly distributed yet”. Embracing digital won’t stop people price-checking and tweeting negative remarks, but it would be worse to keep it – and therefore the customer – segregated. If that happens, and you promote on convenience alone, that customer never comes to your store and never sees a physical embodiment of the brand. Last November, as Zeitgeist previously reported, Ralph Lauren was one of the latest brands making use of 4D projection mapping. People cheered at animated handbags and ties. In 2011, Mintel advises, “brands may need to get more creative to lure consumers into stores, offering more than just retail and be a venue, not just a shop.” I’ll leave you with that thought while I go and cheer at a sandwich in my local “venue”.

Surf’s up: Toward shopper marketing integration

Forrester estimates that $249b will be spent on online retail in 2014 in the US of A. (Great until you consider what Roland Emmerich estimates will happen in 2012.) When we think of people shopping online, our tendency might be to think of a housewife at home, at her desktop computer, slightly less bewildered than perhaps the average housewife would have been five years ago, clicking away at Tesco or Amazon. However, as a brand’s presence online is effectively communicated and merged with in-store comms, people are increasingly shopping online while in-store, as typified by last year’s notorious Dixons campaign.

As eConsultancy reports, while previously there may have been a fluid, predictable path to purchase, since the arrival of the Internet things have changed. “People research online and buy offline. They research offline and then buy online. And in both cases the brands and retailers are likely to vary. And in both cases satisfaction with the experience impacts repeat purhcase likelihood across all channels.” The risk is that someone might use the bricks-and-mortar store as a mere window, an experiential exhibition to test and get a feel of the products before buying them online. This is exactly what the article goes on to detail, albeit anecdotally. It calls the situation “apocalyptically galling” for offline retailers. Some high-street stores are responding. HMV for example has POS comms suggesting people buy the product just as easily from their website (a precarious strategy as somone might defer their purchase while in-store and for one of many reasons not go through with the online purchase). These online alternatives will be judged against the John Lewis et al. of the world by cost, convenience and service. Many will not be able to tick all three boxes.

More recently, eConsultancy wrote about the recent publication of a survey entitled “Respect the Shopper: Harmonizing the Cross-Channel Experience”. The survey revealed,

•    88% said they had shopped that retailer’s web site
•    75% said visiting the brand’s web site helps them to shop in-store
•    85% compared prices online
•    44% visited a competitor’s web site
•    26% will visit the retailer’s web site to continue shopping after leaving the store

This level of integration bodes well for promotional activity and awareness opportunities. However it also leaves the shopper open to exposure to competitive retailers while in-store, instantly. One way to combat this challenge will be to make the shopping experience – from specific promotions to the retail environment – more personal and engaging, to create some sort of an affinity for the store they are in and the brand as a whole, taking away the relatively bespoke nature of the online environment.