Check out the recent issue of The Urbanist. It calls attention to a few interesting urban shopper activations including:
- North Face's Extreme Shopping Experience
- J. Crew's DIY Day
- Amazon Pop-Up
Check out the recent issue of The Urbanist. It calls attention to a few interesting urban shopper activations including:
With all eyes on the launch of the iPhone 6 today, it's safe to say that interest in mobile development is still going strong.
Not only are manufacturers continuing to make advancements in mobile functionality and features but businesses and shoppers are advancing the way they use mobile phones—including using them for simple chores like grocery shopping.
Today's mobile shoppers can not only make their list on their mobile phone but also buy their groceries.
Instacart is one of several companies that use the power of mobile to make every grocery shopper's dream comes true—the dream of having your own personal grocery shopper and delivery service.
Through the Instacart app you can request items that a "personal shopper" will hand pick from select stores and deliver. The company recently expanded its offerings beyond Costco and Kroger and teamed up with Whole Foods. It even has Instacart personal shoppers embedded in the stores to make delivery times faster—a key differentiator for shoppers looking to ease the grocery shopping process.
While Instacart is only active in select cities, it will be interesting to see how it resonates with mobile shoppers and shoppers in general. Will shoppers trust an app to select their produce the way they trust their iPhone to manage their schedule? We'll have to wait and see.
Photo Source: Kantar US Insights, Tracking Tweets on iPhone 6
Amazon continues to innovate at the convergence of consumer devices and shopping. The online megastore made big news this week when it threw its hat into the smartphone race. While Amazon is a late entry into the category, the new device plays into its biggest strength: shopping.
The phone’s special feature is an app called Firefly. Firefly is a simple way to scan anything around you in the world—physical objects, shows on your TV screen, music playing at the coffee shop, etc.—and Amazon will tell you what you just saw or heard. This will provide users with everything from IMDB.com data for TV shows to album titles for music. Of course, it will also offer users the ability to purchase whatever they scan from Amazon.com. Firefly is so integral to Amazon’s new phone that there is a special button located on the side dedicated to activating this feature. Has Amazon just armed shoppers with the ultimate showrooming tool? Does its new world-scanning device remove the only remaining barriers for shoppers to use their smartphones to buy virtually everything?
Image Source: CBS News
In an ever-changing retail environment where brands and shoppers increasingly communicate via Tweets or status updates, shoppers can still find themselves trailed by obnoxious sales assistants when entering a brick-and-mortar store. While human interaction should be encouraged between retailers and shoppers, questions such as “How’s the weather outside?” or “Where is your necklace from?” are unnecessary. The generic welcoming process, of which shoppers are very aware, is artificial and often accompanied with a forced smile.
The often unsettling process of being approached by retail assistants with “ice-breaker” questions might interfere with a shopper’s in-store experience, dampening both the brick-and-mortar image and the shopper’s perception of the overall brand. Retailers should strive to formulate a holistic shopping experience, captivating the shopper’s attention in a personalized manner.
Imagine technology that could revolutionize both point of sale (POS) and the nature of customer service.
Enter Square.
Square’s Register and Wallet technology has been described as a “receipt in the form of an application.” The technology provides a basis to engage in the stages of selling, the physical exchange, while collecting data about the shopper.
Square has the ability to sell on the go, streamlining sales across multiple channels and collecting shoppers’ personal details, shopping habits, and previous store experiences. It, therefore, acts as an all-in-one business solution with the power to improve both customer experience and enterprise efficiency.
Continue reading "Square: The Future of Sale Transaction Technology" »
No more misspelled words, faulty autocorrections, or fat-finger problems. Flow, the new update to the Amazon mobile app, takes typing out of the process of searching for online products. Instead, the app uses the smartphone’s camera to scan an item’s shape, size, color, box text, and appearance to identify an exact product match.
Flow is the latest effort by the online giant to challenge the brick-and-mortar channel. Shoppers can use the app at home or in store to easily search products, price compare, create shopping lists, and, possibly, choose to buy online instead of at the store.
This app update, combined with reports of drone delivery and anticipatory shipping, is helping Amazon to turn its greatest weakness into its greatest opportunity. By offering tools that satisfy the need for instant gratification, these ideas increase Amazon’s relevancy in everyday shopping trips. However, with most people buying their CPG products in store, do you think that Flow has enough power to overcome this barrier?
Photo Source: Integer ShopPicTM Library
Historically, Black Friday has been a Thanksgiving weekend tradition for many shoppers as they start on their holiday shopping and snag the biggest sales of the season. The question this year is, how many shoppers are going to brick-and-mortar locations versus taking advantage of online shopping and how many are hitting the stores on Thanksgiving instead of waiting until Black Friday?
According to the Business Times, factoids around who is shopping where and when are becoming anything but concrete. Phrases such as “go shopping” and “hitting the stores” are resulting in confusion for shoppers as well as readers. Accenture reported that on their survey “go shopping on Thanksgiving Day this year,” included anyone who planned on browsing online or in stores on the holiday. With the increasing options of how we go about each step of our purchase process and how we interact with multiple media platforms, brands, and retailers each day, we are continuously blurring the lines of when we are in consumer and shopper mode, even on days notorious for consumer spending power at retail. According to the Integer 2013 Holiday Checkout Issue, 18% more of shoppers are using online tools (search engines, eRetailers, and brand websites) this year versus last year.
With sales and deals already in full swing, how are you planning to kick off your holiday shopping?
Download The Checkout Issue 7.2013 | Holiday Edition Here
Photo Source: PCWorld.com
Recently, the planners at Integer got together for lunch and ended up at a restaurant that just implemented a tablet system, which displays your menu options, takes your orders, and even your payment. It essentially cuts out the wait staff. Well the story goes that even us planners had a hard time figuring it out, so much so that we asked for the print menus and help. Adoption takes time.
But that is not my point. As we were waited on by actual
humans, I noticed the emotion that the staff brought in. A smile. A joke. An
endearing sigh at the failed technology before us. I was truly relieved by this
injection of the human soul, something technology can’t provide. For now at
least…
There is an apparent limit to replacing humans with technology beyond adoption: an engaging experience. Though it may not necessarily be a limit in all situations. A convenience store that serves breakfast burritos during morning rush hour may benefit from the speedy automation that a tablet will bring. However, when asking for a bottle of wine at dinner, I will prefer the experience of having a human smile at me…
So let’s not be too hasty to adopt every hot technology trend without determining whether it would build on or detract from how we experience a brand. For this restaurant, I urge them to get their money back.
Photo Source: iphonetoolbox.com
As marketers see the proliferation of mobile behaviors and devices, the natural reponse seemingly is to start integrating mobile into everything possible. Every campaign, promotion, tool, etc. Unfortunately, everyone isn't always asking the questions... "Is mobile right for this?" or "What mobile tools are right for my audience?" or "How am I going to know if mobile is successful if I don't know what to expect?" As a part of our on-going shopper study, The Checkout, we have asked about mobile marketing interaction and found some interesting differences that clearly illustrate the need to dig into mobile behaviors specific to our audiences, because like the rest of marketing, there is no mobile silver bullet.
For example, even looking at surface level data like respondent age yields some drastic differences in prefered mobile engagement.
Continue reading "SMS? QR Code? App? Mobile Site? What Do I Do?" »
One of my favorite stress relievers is thumbing through catalogs. It doesn’t matter what kind, J.Jill, Pottery Barn, Athleta, William Sonoma, or Crate and Barrel. This past Sunday, while indulging in some stress relief on my couch, I noticed something in Crate and Barrel’s latest catalog, “January Inspiration 2013,” that caused me to sit up and take notice. Peppered throughout the pages were little tidbits of complimentary info that Crate and Barrel offered its readers for free. It was a brilliant added value that I have yet to encounter in another catalog. On a cozy living room design page was this suggested Scrabble app.
In the wake of Puma’s successful “fastest purchase” campaign, which enabled shoppers to get higher discounts if they bought sneakers quickly, and Nike Mexico offering runners the opportunity to redeem their kilometers into currency to buy new shoes, Guatemalan shoe retailer Meat Pack just launched a funny, cutting-edge discount initiative. The amount of the promotion directly depended on shoppers’ ability to physically surpass themselves. The faster they ran, the cheaper it got.
To increase loyalty and drive sales, Meat Pack came up with a brilliant, irreverent promotional campaign addressing its core audience: hardcore sneaker fans, also known as sneakerheads. To promote the new discount, they created Hijack, an enhancement to the official Meat Pack app already used by customers.
The first time I saw a QR code was on the corner of a Lion King poster in a New York City subway. Though I had no clue what it was, my friend eagerly whipped out her BlackBerry, ready to give her recently downloaded QR code reader a test drive.
QR Codes (short for Quick Response Codes) like the one I saw on the subway popped up everywhere in 2011, from subways to product packaging, magazines to department stores, and even on cookies. It was so popular that it seemed like brands slapped codes on everything without thinking about how it would be used and its value to the shopper.
For example, Austin-based restaurant Juan in a Million sports a QR code on their dine-in menu. When scanned, the code takes you to a Google map of the restaurant’s location. How does this bring value to the customer if they’re already there? As awareness of QR Codes grew, I felt as though many brands were misusing them. I saw a QR code on a highway billboard once. How am I supposed to scan that at 65 mph? The many QR code failures frustrated me. However, one year later, I think that some brands are finally getting it right.
Continue reading "Shoppers Respond to QR Codes that Deliver Value" »
Click to learn more about the BTS shopper and discover data about purchase habits and attitudes during the season
