Multi-Channel Commerce & Retailing

I’ve been intrigued lately (okay, more intrigued than usual) by the notion of how advances in the adoption by retailers of the mobile channel will eventually come into play in the physical world of bricks and mortar retailers.

There is, of course, the whole notion of simply promoting online shopping via internet-enabled mobile devices, but that’s so, I dunno…web 1.5.

There’s also the innovation we’re seeing from firms like Sears, which allows customers to use in-store kiosks (provided by Tyco Electronics). Which, don’t get me wrong, is a step in the right direction.

Perhaps closest to what I’m talking about are consumer-targeted MPOS (Mobile Point of Sale) devices like the Motorola Sparrow.             

Which are great, but I’m thinking more about that mobile device in my pocket, which, for most mobile-enabled consumers in the US and Europe today, includes not only communication features, but a camera. Why not use this capability as an input device?

It seems that the technology is there. There are plenty of companies applying it to various industries, such as Mitek (financial services), Copper Range (construction), Nokia (which recently acquired Pixto, inventor of a generic image recognition app for mobile phones), and even freeware from ScanLife, which is available through Apple’s iTunes. And there are, of course, numerous PDA extension bar code scanners, some of which we’ve seen our retail clients evaluating, and most of which are cumbersome and expensive.

But what I’m thinking is, with all of these available technologies, who will be first to market with barcode scanning software that integrates with cellphone (and/or PDA) cameras, allowing customers to interact directly with the retailer? This experience could entail, at a most basic level, pointing your camera phone at a product’s barcode, sending an MMS to a number supplied by the retailer, and getting back information like detailed product specs/information or inventory for a certain size/variation. Go beyond the basic and allow simple online (or even SMS based) ordering and payment—or integrate it all into a package that figures out what’s going on when the software recognizes a barcode, and automatically takes the user to a webpage with product and purchase info. Such a scheme could really augment the “buy from any store with no shipping costs” (of which I’m a big fan) policy of retailers like Nordstrom.

I think the ultimate value (for consumers and smart webcos, anyway) of this technology would come from shopping aggregators (like say google product search, né froogle) to provide a mechanism to allow shoppers to scan a product barcode in a bricks and mortar store, send it to the aggregator, and receive back the best deals on that product. This of course assumes that the aggregator doesn’t mind the risk of alienating the physical retailer…but that makes me think maybe the future of bricks and mortar doesn’t so much lie in our traditional notion of a retailer-branded physical shopping experience, but perhaps in the concept of a product-brand-centric—or online aggregator centric—storefront where shoppers go to touch, feel, and/or try on stuff they want to buy, and then find the best deals online using the internet and the input device in their pocket.

And of course there’s room for less radical approaches, wherein, for example:

-         a traditional retailer sets up such a system—perhaps as a premium service with a fee—and offers to match the prices found online, or to provide instant pick up at the physical store the customer’s shopping in, for a premium over the cheapest online price (solving the inventory-related issues associated with these approaches is left as an exercise for the retailer:^)

-         a mall owner or other third party sets up such a system, inviting a limited set of retailers to opt-in, and providing a suite of tools (perhaps for a fee) to deal with the price-competition and inventory issues that may arise (e.g. query-specific promotions and/or substitute/cross-sell/up-sell options)

As always, I’m interested in your feedback on these ideas.

Posted by Vince Cavasin at 04:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

I am not quite sure that the Search Me model can be easily replicated for an e-commerce website though, but let’s now have a look at Oskope (http://www.oskope.com/). They let you choose how you want to display the results of your search so it is a bit more convenient for me to navigate through them. Analysing the results is a bit easier as you can see on this graph view, the experience is no longer flat but the best is still to come!
What is better then? Well actually I believe the capability to search with visual components as an input has a great future. Why? Because describing something is always an issue. Most of the words are inaccurate and translation is quite difficult - try to explain the difference between purple and lilac for example. So if I can just give a picture of something I like as an input there is a good chance that the results will suit me better (assumption being that the results are relevant). It is easier said than done, but I have noticed a few recent good things. Like.com (http://www.like.com/) have been one the first to offer a visual search feature where you can select a visual detail of a product that you like and try to find matching ones based on colour and/or shape. Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/) have created a really inspirational browsing experience in enabling a search where you can choose a colour through an actual rainbow. A bit sexier than searching with a keyword!

But I think the real thing is still to be invented. Imagine a world where you could browse the internet, see a product that you like, right-click on the image, launch the search and then see a search results page where you could compare prices across the internet with no language barrier. It will be pretty cool and useful – I guess it could also be quite depressing for people like me based in the UK where almost everything is more expensive than anywhere else! It could sound a bit futuristic, but I think we are not so far away from it. I tested this afternoon the TinEye browser plugin (http://tineye.com/) for the first time and I have been quite impressed. Basically I am now able to search the entire internet through a right-click on an image. So who will be the first to build a comparative engine based on this?

Posted by Guillaume Vingtier at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

For this post, I’d like to get a little more concrete on the potential of using the new channel framework to analyze & optimize a marketer/seller-customer relationship.

One company I like that deals with a potential retail “channel” in many different ways is Recellular.com. Recellular is in the perhaps unglamorous but important business of "electronics sustainability"--they work to keep the millions of cellphones, PDAs, and related accessories that get replaced annually out of landfills. How might they adopt our framework?

The first answer that comes to mind for me is: gather and analyze customer intimacy data concerning how long the customer has had his/her phone, how many new features he/she might be missing, what he/she uses his/her phone for…and then to target them with SMS, MMS, voice, or web solicitations intended to appeal to their propensity for technology change vs. the age/functionality of their phone.

But here are some other ideas that come to mind:

-         Could Recellular partner with a battery company to incorporate technology that detected when a battery is nearing the end of its life (who among us hasn’t had to figure that out the old-fashioned way?), and somehow (calendar message, SMS) triggered a message to the user?

-         Could Recellular partner with service providers or cell phone companies to send SMS, MMS, or internet-based reminders to customers whose phones are close to reaching the end of their lifespans, perhaps based on the customer’s known usage patterns, travel patterns, or other behavioral data (if the service provider is willing to provide it…)?

-         Could Recellular combine customer behavior intimacy with location awareness (perhaps through a custom, co-branded hardware component) to suggest to green-minded customers green-related things to do? Or drop off points when it was time to recycle a cell phone or battery? Or for that matter, any other recyclable thing?

-         Could Recellular partner with a philanthropic organization to leverage any of the above technologies to allow cell phone users to benefit causes significant to them through simply recycling electronics?

-         Could Recellular partner with both a philanthropic organization and a cell carrier to provide benefit to both parties PLUS to the customer in the form of some sort of incentive?

All of these ideas have their pros, cons, and practical/technical limitations. Again, I’d love to hear your feedback on any of these or anything else that comes to mind.

Posted by Vince Cavasin at 01:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)