Posts tagged Retailers
It’s Embedded vs. Mobile Devices for the Hearts and Minds of Retailers
Jan 20th
“The Store of the Future,” as retail electronics vendors have depicted it over the past few years, features eight-foot touchscreen walls that double as mirrors, interacting with the customer as she tries on virtual clothes without sacrificing her own modesty, scanning the ID tags and profiles of items she’s already selected, and giving store clerks tools to dazzle the customer with demos and make on-the-spot deals without having to rush to the back office. These are the wonders made possible by embedded technology… ah, can’t you hear the voice-over announcer now!
The thing is, customers are already entering the stores right now with touchscreens, scanners, IM clients, Twitter clients, and live video displays – they’re just in the customer’s pocket or purse. So at the National Retail Federation’s big show earlier this week in New York City, there were dueling visions of “The Store of the Future.” The challenger looks more like a kind of smart Wi-Fi that communicates directly with the devices the customer already has, using hardware that could cost retailers a lot less.
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Embedded: Big, bright, and in your face
Representing the “champion’s” corner for embedded technology is Intel, whose message is that screens should be big. To illustrate its point, it gathered together an impressive list of consumer goods partners, including Kraft Foods, HSN (above), and Adidas (below), in live demonstrations of interactive kiosk technology featuring feedback cameras and live analytics. Imagine super-chef Wolfgang Puck welcoming incoming shoppers everywhere (literally) with, “How do you do, ma’am?” If you’re a man, you wouldn’t appreciate it much. That’s what the cameras and analytics are for; to determine what gender and approximate age you must be.
It is Intel’s software division that provides the masterstroke here, with what it unveiled this week as its Audience Impression Metric (AIM) suite. As with a Microsoft demo of the same technology RWW featured last Monday, Intel is literally aiming to reinvent the billboard, replacing ordinary signage with huge devices that may be able to ascertain your identity, guess your interests, and maybe say hi to you by name.
“Deployers don’t want an ad or message merely to be seen. They want it to be relevant,” reads a new Intel white paper on AIM (PDF available here). “Otherwise, if consumers pass by unfazed by what shows on a screen, they’re wasting time and money. Video analytics distinguishes how much attention people put toward digital signage. As someone approaches a monitor, cameras focus in, capturing a digitized impression of the signage viewer. Actual images are not used, thus keeping data anonymous. Through those impressions, the technology is able to discern a person’s gender, race, approximate age and, based on the contours of the person’s face and positioning, just how long he actually looks at the screen.”
Now, although the “H” in “HSN” originally stood for “home” – as in “home shopping” – it’s actually been extending its brand beyond the scope of just television. The publicity firm that helped HSN connect with Intel made it clear it also handles marketing for Starwood, the parent company of Sheraton and Westin hotels. Conceivably, digital signage such as this could transform an arm’s-length span of unused wall space into valuable real estate.
Something else you might possibly find in a hotel lobby might look like a rejected design for a refit TARDIS. It’s called the Diji-Touch (above), and it’s actually an Intel prototype concept for a kind of interactive vending machine that incorporates the same technology as the video wall. With two big screens at right angles to one another, it has better opportunity to capture customers’ attention walking down a hallway.
If you can believe this, Diji-Touch devices could be managed through a cloud-based content management system. While the cloud can’t exactly deliver Cadbury eggs or Jell-O, it could serve as a deployment point for customized advertising campaigns, and also (you knew this was coming) display ads from outside sources. So just the same way a company may buy display ads on a Web site today, it may buy ads on a vending machine tomorrow.
Mobile: Small, portable, and in your pockets
One company already very familiar to retailers is VeriFone, which makes point-of-sale (POS) systems and credit card readers. Normally, VeriFone fights in the embedded systems camp, but at the NRF show earlier this week, it came forth with a surprise: a portable catalog and payment system that could also be beamed via Wi-Fi to an iPad (shown above).
The idea is to extend VeriFone technology to smaller retailers whose proprietors may already have iPads. Imagine one of those middle-of-the-mall kiosks that may only have a temporary contract. With VeriFone’s software and an iPad stationed near the register, the clerk could show customers a wide variety of sale items without having to keep them in inventory first.
One of the more intriguing concepts for leveraging existing mobile devices came from Aruba Networks. It produces in-store Wi-Fi systems that lets clerks and sales associates roam the entire showroom floor, handling demonstrations, inventory checks, and final POS directly from their iPod Touch or iPad. On the right, you see one of the attachments Aruba was demonstrating, called a Linea-Pro 4. It’s a snap-on attachment to an iPhone or iPod Touch that includes a barcode reader and a magnetic stripe reader.
It’s cool device attachments like this one that should get Aruba’s in-store Wi-Fi installed on major retailers’ networks. But once it’s there, the opportunity arises for another kind of customer contact. Imagine apps, if you will, that sense when a customer’s own smartphone has entered the in-store Wi-Fi’s range. Conceivably, those apps could produce lists of store specials, check prices on non-priced goods, generate instant discounts or coupons, or even map the locations of store clerks wearing the Linea-Pro devices.
Aruba is calling the back-end architecture for bringing shoppers online MOVE. During the show, Aruba made it clear that MOVE is definitely being crafted to extend the digital retailing experience to the customers themselves.
So over the next three years, more retailers will definitely be reaching out to you with digital, interactive, multitouch devices, and capturing information about you as they do. The only question now is, will they be using their own devices or yours?
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This Holiday, Amazon Wants You to Brazenly Stick it to Bricks and Mortar Retailers
Dec 6th
When you’re holiday shopping this year, there’s little doubt that Amazon would prefer that you buy that copy of the Steve Jobs biography or Snuggie on their site, rather than in an actual store. That’s why the e-commerce giant offers things like free shipping and a mobile app that lets you scan barcodes and compare prices.
In many cases, the price Amazon pulls up on its Price Check app for iOS is going to smaller than the one stuck to the item you’re holding in your hand. They know this, and so to further encourage you to buy from them, Amazon is offering a 5% discount on items purchased via the Price Check app.
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The promotion has its limitations. For one, the deal is only good this Saturday, December 10. According to Amazon’s press release, the 5% discount is good on up to three “qualifying products in eligible categories.” That list of categories includes electronics, DVDs, toys, music and sporting goods, but there’s no word on how many products are eligible for the price cut.
As smartphone adoption continues to grow, more and more people are engaging in mobile commerce, and the buying isn’t limited to when consumers are at home or work. More than one third of smartphone owners used the device to make a purchase while standing in a bricks and mortar store, according to recent data from ComScore.
Amazon is well aware of the trend, and they’re hoping to cash in on it even further by running this promotion. For physical retailers, many of whom have already felt the heat from Amazon’s success, it puts them in a difficult spot. Amazon is able to offer lower prices thanks to its very structure, which includes less overhead than businesses that operate out of a physical storefront.
For consumers, the bottom line is who has the cheaper price, and who can get them their purchases in time for holiday gift-giving. As long as Amazon can deliver in those two areas, we can only see this trend toward mobile commerce continue.
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SEO Marketing for Online Retailers – NewsMaker (press release)
Nov 10th
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SEO Marketing for Online Retailers
NewsMaker (press release) Small business SEO does have its nuances, but hiring the right people can make the job a whole lot easier. If you are from Australia, there are countless Brisbane SEO companies that are there to help. Your task, as a business owner, is to weed out … |
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Data Shows Retailers Need To Pace Spend To Maximize Black Friday Performance
Nov 4th
Traffic volatility can make spend pacing during Black Friday very challenging. Spend too much too soon and you might suffer a lower ROI and not have money left for Cyber Monday. Spend less and you might be missing out on consumer volume. Performance data from the past three years reveals that…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Verifone Acquires Global Bay to Give Retailers Flexibility At the Point of Sale
Nov 1st
Payments hardware and software company Verifone today announced the acquisition of Global Bay to bring flexibility to the point of sale to retail stores across the world. Verifone is locked into a battle for mobile credit card readers with the likes of Square, Intuit, ROAMPay, Erply and PayAnywhere. In the retail channel, Global Bay should help Verifone differentiate itself from the pack.
The opportunity for mobile credit card readers is to disrupt the traditional cash register point of sale. Users want to be able scan items from their smartphones and then turn around to the next available clerk and pay for them. The idea is to make the point of sale mobile, even within a retail store.
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The new Global Bay/Verifone product will have four features: mobile point of sale, retailing (price check, customer programs, credit card enrollment), “clienteling” (information about customers for sales associates) and inventory management. The mobile POS will be integrated from both Global Bay and Verifone’s offerings while Global Bay brings the other three to the fold. Instead of a dongle, Global Bay uses a sleeve that can fit over devices such as an iPod Touch.
There is an opportunity for retails stores to vastly enhance the checkout process with mobile payments. Cherian Abraham, a developer from a company called Drop Labs, wrote extensively a couple of weeks ago about the point of sale within retails stores in relation to the opportunities created with near field communications and the Google Wallet. The idea is users can scan and purchase items straight off the store shelf, eliminating the actual cash register. Clerks and sales associates could check the mobile receipt for customers that made purchases on their way out the door.
Verifone and Global Bay do not take the solution quite that far. What the strength is for Verifone with this acquisition is the infrastructure and software support that Global Bay provides. Mobile inventory management is a good feature that not many of the other mobile credit card readers institute, except for Erply, which specializes in that particular function. Each of the major mobile credit readers & dongle providers have a specialty within the ecosystem. Square touts its ubiquity and ability to create a cash register and card case rewards program. Intuit has a wealth of financial management solutions. PayAnywhere also touts its ubiquity (hence the name) and tries to be slightly cheaper than the alternatives (if ever so slightly).
Before the Global Bay acquisition, Verifone touted its security. The company once scolded Square for not encrypting its dongles. Verifone is now looking to create value added services on tops it platform to entice retailers to use the service.
What do you think of the ability to pay from anywhere you want in a retail store? Merchants, does arming your employees with mobile readers entice you? What are the benefits? Let us know in the comments.
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Back-to-College Is Where It’s At For Online Retailers
Aug 25th
“Back to school! Back to school, to prove to Dad that I’m not a fool! I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don’t get in a fight!…” If you love the movie Billy Madison as much as me, then you’re singing the rest of the song in your head [...]
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Digital Agency Micrositez Says Back to School Gives Online Retailers a Golden … – PR.com (press release)
Aug 6th
 PR.com (press release) |
Digital Agency Micrositez Says Back to School Gives Online Retailers a Golden …
PR.com (press release) Industry insiders say now is the time for online retailers to take advantage of the opportunity by investing in a watertight PPC / SEO Strategy. Lake Mary, FL, August 06, 2011 –(PR.com)– Search Giant Google says 15 per cent of back to school shoppers … |
View full post on SEO – Google News
How Retailers Can Improve Product Visibility Using Structured Markup
Aug 4th
How many times have you heard this before? “If you sell products online, you can have the best-designed ecommerce site on the planet, but you won’t break any sales records if your customers can’t find you in the SERPs.” While it’s an age-old saw that you need to make your content findable, a huge…
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‘Retailers should focus SEO strategies on images and video’ – Marketing Week
Aug 3rd
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'Retailers should focus SEO strategies on images and video'
Marketing Week The study suggests that retailers should focus their SEO strategies around video and image content, rather than optimising around text such as blogs or news, which both feature significantly lower in search listings. … Ebay tops Google UK’s shopping search results |
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Size Does Matter: How Retailers Should Manage Campaigns For Big & Small Ticket Items
May 27th
Big retailers with a substantial store presence most often have a big online presence with thousands of SKUs. Apart from drawing consumers who might solely look online to buy products, they also help consumers in the earlier research phase of the buying cycle. Sometimes, the merchant will complete…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
View full post on Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing
