Omni channel

Retailers and anyone having anything to do with retailing, have been crying themselves hoarse over Omnichannel for the past few years. Omni channeling  has been touted as the silver bullet.We have heard umpteen speakers wax lyrical about this phenomenon and read tomes of write-ups by the retail gurus of this world. Let me add my two fils to this knowledge base.

In simple terms Omnichannel retailing is meant to enhance the shopping experience of a customer by providing her/him with more than one option to research, select, buy,pay and procure a product. Having said that, I would like to compare my experiences with omnichannel retailing and otherwise.

The retailing experience starts with recognising one's want and then learning more about it, before acquiring it. One can learn about the product through advertisements which can be print media, audio-visual media or through word of mouth from friends, acquaintances or even from the sales person at a bricks and mortar store. My challenge in such situations has been the chalk and cheese part of such  product knowledge. The latest model of the smart phone has rave reviews in the media but when I look for brickbats, I find there is no dearth of it too. The state of the art anodized aluminum body is praised for its lightness and finish, while the brickbat lobby compares it to the curved OLED screen if the right amount of pressure is applied. But why apply pressure?

Selection is always a dilemma be it on the bricks or the clicks. On the bricks, almost on the rocks hic, I can use some of my senses ie., vision and  touch to support my selection. Of course the sales assistant sometimes do not live up to their designation of assistance and end up sending me out of the store empty handed.  On the clicks I often find it to be a time consuming process which might end up with no selection too. Almost a love's labours lost! I log into this wonderful web-store that sells spectacles. I click through the gender, type of frame and then browse through umpteen number of frames to finally select one. I can see on the screen how the frame looks on a face, which doesn't even look like my cousin a hundred times removed. I wonder why they cant take my mug shot and frame me with the pair of glasses that I chose.Then there another set of clicks to select the lens, its power, and add-ons like anti-reflective, tint etc.. Clickety click and I reach the pay and ship page. I am careful at this stage as my actions now have a direct impact on my wallet. A wrong input on one of these pages and you are back the selection stage.

Buying and paying is, in my experience, less cumbersome in the real world. Though technology sometimes challenge you at this stage too. ' Sir the system is slow today' , 'Sir the price is actually ....', ' Sir our credit card machine is down, can you pay cash',..... In the virtual world the challenge could be different. the most frustrating one is when the credit card details have been punched in and the screen freezes. while you wait there is a 'PING' on your cell phone telling you that your card has been debited. when you return your gaze to the screen, you find a new window that says 'Your payment did not go through, please try again . Good Bye' . Then you start another process of chasing a refund.

At the Bricks and Mortar store, upon conclusion of your transaction the purchase is packed up in plastic and given with a plastic smile and gratitude. On the click side it starts another phase of waiting and querying. Some times the logistics is with a 3rd party and you have to log into another virtual world with a reference number that looks like the last 15 digits of  the value of Pi. When the chase ends and you have the product.

So all the sad stories apart how does one does one have a  happy omnichannel experience. My mantra for this is simple - use the virtual channel for information both product and vendor; walk into the store for touch,feel,buy and pay. In cases where you cannot walk or ride to the store then probably you will have to forego the bricks and resort to clicks. 

Internet of Things

Not an iota but IoT
I did not know that the term Internet of Things (IoT) was coined almost 15 years ago. It is only recently that I have seen IoT is being discussed and commonly referred to. I recollect reading about RFID tags around the same time as the coining of IoT took place. These tags were going to revolutionize inventory management and many other Retail and logistics processes. The rider was - RFID tags should cost less than a Nickel, only then would it be feasible to be used extensively. The reason I mention this is, because in my opinion, it is a precursor to IoT. For the 'Things' to communicate to each other some such 'intelligence' like an RF tag is necessary.

I relate to IoT as a sci-fi concept from much earlier times. Where every inanimate object that we surround ourselves with is able to communicate with each other and take 'appropriate' actions. In an ideal IoT scenario my bed is able to calculate the amount of sleep I have had, it is integrated with my calendar and knows how soon I should get up. I get woken up by the bed - singing, screaming or shaking determined by the choice of the day. As my feet slip into my slipper, my kettle comes on and the water temperature in the bathroom adjusts to the optimal temperature that I seek. The Possibilities are many and as we fantasize or visualize.

And perhaps scary. Am reminded of a comic I read more than 4 decades ago. The robots take over the world. The robot decides everything for you. No you can’t have that second bite of cheese cake; not another shot of single malt; time to hit the sac - lights out; and on and on. Do we need that big-brother? Perhaps selectively required. We could end up a healthy race and wouldn’t end up spending a lot of our time searching for keys that were kept in a 'very secure' place.

An ideal IoT world will not just be flat but everything within arms distance. Does that make future generations less active? My grandfather was a healthy nonagenarian. My father in his mid-fifties could beat me, a 17 year old then, in a game of badminton. Their health was vouched by their physical life and habits. IoT through devices wearable and otherwise will remind me to get off my seat and walk, scream when my cuppa has more sugar or the dinner plate has more calories, prompt me to walk those extra steps to achieve my daily quota of 8000 steps.

50 Billion devices are expected to be connected to the IoT by 2020. Only another 5 years, most of us will be around and we will know whether it will be 50 or 500 Billion. From the intelligent fridge that will order replenishment to the medicine bottle which will not only order replenishment but also remind the user to have the medicine, the possibilities are enormous. 50 or 500 billion is just a number.

Luxury

I had the privilege of being part of an academic discussion on Luxury Retailing and opportunity for Training such retailers. It was interesting to sit back and think about what is luxury. The immediate adjectives  that come to mind are aspiration, great quality, highly priced, not easily available, has an impeccable  history, linked to a lifestyle etc..

But when I ponder a little more, I realise that luxuryis a very relative term. Luxury over a period of time becomes necessity. To put it differently,once attained the luxury item ceases to be a luxury. Of course this need not be the case always. Once attained the aspiration moves to a more higher, more difficult to achieve object. While a car was a luxury at one stage in life, it changes from 'a car' to a  particular brand of car in a later stage of life.

The relativity with respect to Luxury is not just defined by affordability but also by geography. The cultural background of the place you live in also defines what is luxury and what is not. Owning an elephant or a race-horse is a luxury in certain regions however it has little value or acceptance as a luxury possession in another corner of the world.

Once you transcend this material world, then what is luxury ?

shopping malls

This country has another shopping mall ! The concept of shopping mall has evolved a lot  in the period that I have been a close witness to Retail and related verticals. A decade and half ago , the maximum time I would spend at a mall would not exceed 2 hours . Two hours were what it took me , my better half and quarter-halves(?) to shop for groceries and window-shop . When the food-courts at the malls began to have more variety , our time at the mall increased by another hour. This , the dinner at the food court, was the carrot to draw the quarter-halves in our expedition. I strongly believe in 'the family that shops together stays together'. Then we saw the advent of cinema multiplexes at the malls . This made the weekly grocery expeditions evolve into an additional monthly cinema-cum-dinner-cum-grocery picnic. When I thought we had reached the end of evolution as far as shopping malls are concerned -- I heard a new concept - shopping resort ! Now this is different from the earlier mentioned forms of the mall . Here one does not speak about the hours you would spend , instead you speak about the number of days you would be in !

The food and entertainment sector within the malls have started getting larger with each stage of the evolution . The food court  had the choicest fast food options  . Fine dining too has arrived at the malls and has become an available choice.

While all these bigger , better Malls were  happening ,  the grocery hypermarkets seem to be taking a different route. The large format hypermarkets have started getting out of the comforts of the Malls and taking on the competition on the high-streets and neighbourhoods. They call themselves 'express ' ,'easy' etc..