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Retail TechFUTUREOFTECH.CO.UK

Doug GardnerThe CIO of River

Island on why investing in tech is

the height of fashion

SEAMUS SMITH Is online activity beginning to

dictate the retail landscape? P4

HELEN DICKINSON OBEOn the importance of understanding the customer P2

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Helen Dickinson OBEChief Executive, British

Retail Consortium

ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS LOSING THE IN-STORE EXPERIENCE?Understanding that today’s consumer moves effortlessly across different channels on their way to a transaction is perhaps the biggest challenge facing any retailer. Customers who walk in store after shopping online expect to be ‘recognised’ at the till, no matter where their buying journey began.

It is now almost pointless to differentiate between an online or offline sale, such is the changing dynamic of our shopping habits. Increasingly all channels are equally important, so just investing in one may not be the right strategy.

In store, customers expect accurate information about product availability and where to obtain something if it’s out of stock or the wrong size. They also expect informed, helpful and knowledgeable staff. The right POS technology empowers staff to engage with customers via product look ups, real time stock data, gift card transactions and click & collect.

Intuitive and simple to customise, with on-screen prompts and workflows to enforce procedures and multiple payment options, great POS technology provides flexibility, accessibility and speed, freeing up staff to focus more on customer relationships and service.

Futura’s retail customers use data collection functionality to offer special offers, newsletters and loyalty schemes with personalised promotions. These should work seamlessly whether a customer’s preference is online, instore or both. Futura will launch a new points-based loyalty system later this year and some users already provide email receipts, a further way to complete the in-store online cycle and strengthen the customer relationship after they have left the store.

Knowing who your customer is no matter where they touch your business is the key.

FUTURA RETAIL SOLUTIONS OFFER EPOS AND STOCK MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FOR LIFESTYLE RETAILERS WWW.FUTURA4RETAIL.CO.UK

READ MORE ON FUTUREOFTECH.CO.UK

Andy MulcahyThe Editor of IMRG on the top 5 ways to keep o top of e-commerce demands at Christmas P6

To infinity and beyondCEO JP Chauvet outlines how omnichannel is the future of retailP7

How technology will transform deliveryPatrick Gallagher outlines the delivery challenges facing retailers and how to solve them

IN THIS ISSUE

Embracing digital: an opportunity for better jobsThe parameters of UK retail are changing at an ever-increasing rate. At the centre of this structural shift lies a digital transformation that is impacting how we shop, the way businesses operate and the skillsets they require

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In many cases, the pace that consumers are embracing new t e c h n o l o g i e s is pushing the boundaries of

retailers, landlords and lo-cal authorities – both to in-novate and cater for an in-creasingly sophisticated and informed buyer. During the last 10 years there has been a significant shift in shop-ping channels used by con-sumers. The ever-connected

consumer has transparency of pricing, quality and ser-vice at their disposal at all times. They are increasingly searching for an online shop-ping experience, with simi-lar touchpoints, in the physi-cal high street environment. Fundamentally though, suc-cessful retailing will always be about understanding the customer and those who do it well are using technology and specifically data to drive developments in how they understand their customers.

“Successful retailing will always be about understanding the customer”

The challenge lies in how retailers navigate the com-plexities presented by digi-tal disruption in a time of such profound change. Whilst new technologies provide an opportunity for retailers to reinvent their in-dustry and competitive model for lasting advantage, it raises the question of what skills are needed in an increasingly digitally led en-vironment. Significant change in the retail work-force is inevitable as the

digital revolution reshapes the industry and the costs of labour versus technology become more divergent. Six-ty per cent of retail jobs are at high risk of automation in the next twenty years, high-er than any other industry. Crucially however, the growth in digital and tech-nological developments will also make better jobs possi-ble. Jobs which are more productive, more rewarding and fit for the future.

@MediaplanetUK

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

The connected customer

Businesses need to employ joined-up thinking — and consumer-driven tech — to make a customer’s journey truly connected, says Tony Bryant, Strategic

Business Development Director of retail technology provider K3 Retail

Om n i c h a n n e l . Multi-channel. Cross-channel. To the average man or woman

in the high street or browsing online, these words don’t mean anything at all. To them it’s just ‘shopping’. Because whether they’re buying via tablet, mobile or in-store, they’re simply out to make a purchase. How they do it — or what ‘channel’ they use — is, to them, neither here nor there.

“If you asked a customer coming out of a store: ‘How was your omnichannel experience?’ they’d look at you oddly,” says Tony Bryant, Strategic Business Development Director of retail technology provider, K3 Retail. “The industry has created a lot of confusion with these terms, so we need to simplify things. Retailers shouldn’t be thinking about ‘omnichannel’ or ‘mul-ti-channel’. They should be thinking about the customer’s journey, instead.”

Customer journeyFor instance, says Tony, if you make a purchase with an online retailer in the morning, and then go into that retailer’s bricks and mortar store in the afternoon, would the staff there know about the product you had bought hours earlier on their website? And if the following morning you phone the retailer’s customer service line, would they be aware of your pur-chase and your later in-store visit?

If they are, that’s a truly connect-ed customer journey.

The raison d’être of brands is to recruit and retain customers. But if a link in the retail chain is weak — causing an individual’s shop-ping experience to break down at any stage — customers will quickly look elsewhere for their goods or services. What’s required, therefore, is consistency across all channels: reduced queues, easy ordering, a range of ways to buy and return goods and engaging post-purchase contact.

In order for this connected jour-ney to be effective, however, all systems of a retail operation need to work together perfectly. That’s

the challenge for retailers — and where technology comes in. Using the right tech can give a significant joined up business advantage.

Fundamental change“Essentially, wherever and when-ever the consumer engages with a brand, they want to have the same experience,” says Bryant. “For ex-ample, it’s annoying if a custom-er’s in-store experience is bad but their online experience is good, or vice versa. To meet customer de-mands, a retailer needs joined up thinking. They need to always put the customer first. To that end, a fundamental change within the industry is that retailers are begin-ning to employ tech which is con-sumer-driven — not retail driven.”

Part of K3 Retail’s offer is to sup-port its global brands — which in-clude everyone from Charles Tyr-whitt and The White Company to Ryman, Hobbycraft and Ted Bak-er — with cutting edge Business Intelligence solutions, including data warehousing and reporting and analytics. In terms of tech, says Bryant, Cortana Analytics, Machine Learning and the Inter-net of Things (such as intelligent fitting rooms and interactive mir-rors) are the tools that retailers are using to manage their stock and gain a deeper insight on how to model customer journeys.

Intelligent insightBut having customer data is one thing: applying that insight intel-ligently is quite another. “For ex-ample, the ultimate experience

would be for a customer to walk into a store with their mobile phone,” says Bryant. “The store recognises them because of the item they bought there last week. The customers opt in to the brand via their phone, which tells them that there is an item they might want that will be coming in-store in two weeks’ time — and would they like to be one of the first peo-ple to buy it? And that’s happen-ing instantaneously.” Live, im-mediate information also gives retailers the ability to react ac-cordingly and make sure that products are available to consum-ers. “Retailers need to understand data about ‘customer’, ‘transac-tion’ and ‘product’ to have a holis-tic view of a total customer jour-ney,” says Bryant.

It’s important to map technol-ogies, such as analytics and ma-chine learning, across a business —from the front end (in-store, on-line, mobile) to the head office, into finance operations and the supply chain. “That comes back to the importance of joined up thinking,” says Bryant. “But a re-tailer always has to start with the customer. That has to be their fundamental principle. If tech can help them offer better service and better standards, then their brand will give greater customer satisfaction — and receive greater customer advocacy in return.”

Tony BryantStrategic Business Development

Director of retail technology provider, k3retail

“Essentially, wherever and whenever the consumer engages with a brand, they want to have the same experience”

By Tony Greenway

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Thanks to an evolving digital landscape, the customer journey completely trans-forms, with a wide array of possible touchpoints .This extends to the in-store ex-

perience. The number of contactless pay-ments rose to 218 million in May, account-ing for 18 per cent of card payments – up from 7 per cent a year ago, according to The UK Cards Association. This acceptance of contactless as a method of payment has propelled the payments industry to the cutting edge of technology. In just a few years, in-store payments have gone from cash and cheques, to wearables such as smart watches. Now we’re starting to see

contactless technology extend to fashion such as jackets and suits.

Online optionsYet the in-store retail experience usually starts before the customer physically walks in to the shop. The online world has become the new catalogue, and it’s easier to browse than ever before. Brand websites, apps, price-comparison sites and social media channels can all be scrutinised to help con-sumers make a decision on what they want to buy, and where they want to buy from.

This was highlighted last month when the Competition and Markets Authority announced ‘tech-based reforms’ to the UK retail banking sector. It emphasised the

Staying ahead of the trend. Online activity is beginning to dictate the retail landscape. PHOTO: SAGE PAY

need for robust phone-based apps that show customers which banks may of-fer the best account, making choice simpler and ultimately identifying the best deal.

It’s clear that online activity is be-ginning to dictate the retail land-scape. In May this year, online spending accounted for 23 per cent of total card spending, with the number of e-commerce payments accounting for 12 per cent of the to-tal number of card payments, says The UK Cards Association.

However, there’s still a huge part for physical shops to play. Last year, retailers took £114bn, with IMRG

estimating that 73 per cent of that was in stores. In-store shopping brings with it the opportunity to up-sell, so the challenge for some retailers is to transfer consumers from online to bricks and mortar. Ensuring an expe-rience that caters to how people want to make purchases is key. The days of ‘cash only’ signs in shop windows will soon be behind us.

Consumers crave consistencyConsumers want to feel empowered, and the assertion that brands need to connect with them on their preferred technology platform doesn’t only ap-ply to social media.

The proliferation of payment options creates the need for consistency. Busi-nesses should stop thinking in terms of channels and start thinking in terms of experiences. Customers don’t think twice about the technology they use un-less it doesn’t work as it should. If con-tactless is available in a shop, a queue of people should be able to use whichever contactless method they choose, with-out slowing the transaction down. Get this right, and retailers will create long-term loyalty – the Holy Grail in this world of increasing choice.

Seamus SmithCEO, Sage Pay

Read more on futureoftech.co.uk

Five things that keep customers

coming back1 Choice

The majority (90 per cent) of consumers claim it’s important for businesses to offer custom-ers a diverse range of payment methods and 58 per cent claim they would be more likely to shop some-where that offered them multiple ways to pay (Sage Payments Landscape Report 2016).

2 EngagementIt’s up to businesses to create platforms that

enable truly personalised engagement. Nurture a community of advocates that promotes your brand.

3 Instant accessTechnology means that consumers expect

businesses to be available at all times. A robust on-line presence means that customers have access whenever they want, no matter where they are.

4 Feeling understoodUnderstanding the customer base on a gran-

ular level allows the business to tailor content and interactions, and customers will feel like your brand understands their needs.

5 Innovative experiencesDoes your business provide a unique cus-

tomer experience? Create a journey they’ll want to talk about.

TIPS

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

When it comes to retail shopping, consumers are increasingly expecting an experience tailored to their preferences

The retail payments revolution

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NEWS

High street store River Island is responding to the challenges of omnichannel with investment, changing its methodologies — and treating technology like fashion, says CIO Doug Gardner.

Omnichannel has changed retail dramatically and irre-vocably in the last couple of years, admits Doug Gardner, CIO of high street fashion sto-re, River Island. “Customers now want to be able to access information about our stock through any of our touch-points,” he says. “And every brand has to recognise today’s increased focus on customer personalisation.”

But Gardner cautions that responding to the challenge of omnichannel requires mo-re than creating a website or app. Instead, it’s about deve-loping a single business mind-set. “What’s needed is core in-vestment, plus people and process change that funda-mentally enhances ability to react fast in a rapidly changing digital world,” he says. “Ben Lewis, our CEO, summed it up well when he said that, as an organisation, we have to tre-at tech like fashion.” This me-ans listening to what custo-mers want and then quickly designing and producing the tech to enable it. “It’s an inte-resting parallel, because some

people equate the street cred of a fashion brand to the tech it uses,” says Gardner.

EmpoweringIn responding to omnichan-nel, River Island has had to significantly change its ex-isting systems. It has moved away from on-premise so-lutions, shifting much of its technology to the cloud, and it’s busy building new mid-dleware and microservices. It has installed better net-works and improved wi-fi in its stores, and handhelds are coming to the fore. “We’re putting handheld android de-vices in all of our stores which digitally empower our staff,” says Gardner. “These include a camera, our apps and social media and they break down barriers with in-store cus-tomers, allowing our staff to engage with them in a much deeper way.” The devices also include back office functions so that an entire store can be run from the shop floor.

Last year, River Island opened a creative hub at Shoreditch. “We want to be the leading digital play-er on the high street, and to do that you have to invest,” notes Gardner. “Shoreditch is an incredibly light, crea-tive and beautiful space. It’s also been designed for collab-orative working. Anyone who works there or visits gets a flavour of what modern digital means.”

EnhancingGardner has this piece of ad-vice for smaller retailers who might be considering their omnichannel approach. “Look at consistency,” he says. “It’s great to buy a dozen bits of tech that look cool — but if they don’t create a single view of your customer, inventory and product, you are going to struggle as you grow to con-nect all of those things.”

And he denies that — as so-me pundits predicted five years ago — we are seeing the death of the high street. “Ac-tually, that trend is reversing. That’s because people, funda-mentally, still like to touch things and socialise. Our sto-res set the tone of our brand. When someone walks in and sees how beautiful they look, it’s a great experience. The di-gital world is a way of enhan-cing that experience and ta-king the pain points out of the shopping journey.”

TIPS

Andy MulcahyEditor, IMRG

Read more on futureoftech.co.uk

5 ways for your brand to keep on top of

e-commerce demands this Christmas

Why tech investments are the height of fashion

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

Why retail tech is travelling at Lightspeed

Omnichannel is the future of retail, says JP Chauvet, President of technology company, Lightspeed. Smaller independent

businesses must embrace it — not ignore it — in order to compete with bigger brands

A few years ago, many pundits were predicting the end of the high street. Bricks and

mortar stores had had their day, they said. Online was the new consumer reality.

“When ecommerce began gai-ning traction, in-store retailers started to get worried,” remem-bers JP Chauvet, President of technology company, Lights-peed. “Their concern was that shoppers would use their stores to educate themselves about the products on display, but then go online to find those same pro-ducts elsewhere at a lower price.”

This was called ‘showroo-ming.’ In North America some retailers even had signs up in their shops that read ‘we do not accept showrooming’ and ‘no digital devices allowed in this store’.” But omnichannel — the seamless integration of online and in-store sales channels — has changed all of that. It turns out that consumers are omni-channel by nature. They love to shop online. They also love to go into a store.

In fact, the real trend is for ‘webrooming’: where shoppers go online to find out about pro-ducts, but then choose to buy them in a shop. So the high street is not over. As Chauvet points out, the ‘brand narrative’ is always much stronger in a

physical environment than it is online, which is why increasing numbers of pure online players — such as Amazon for ins-tance — are opening bricks and mortar stores.”

Driving footfall in-store“Before they visit a physical sto-re, the majority of buyers go on-line to find out who holds the in-ventory,” says Chauvet. “In the past, shoppers would walk up and down the high street, be attracted by a store front, go in and spend. Now the new store front is on-line. What’s happening is that a brand’s online presence is driving footfall to its physical stores.”

Lightspeed provides cloud-ba-sed technology that allows SMEs to launch an online store and then sync it with their in-sto-re point of sale system, centrali-zing operations, products, inven-tory and customer data. When the company launched in 2005, its mission was ’to save cities’.

That sounds dramatic, admits Chauvet; but what it really me-ant was ensuring diversity on the high street by making sure the smaller players weren’t put out of business by more established glo-bal chains. The trouble was, small and medium independents often didn’t have the money, time or bandwidth to fight back.

Understanding omnichannel“So we believed the way forward was to bring low-cost technolo-gy to small and medium sized in-dependent retailers to help them compete against the big brands,” says Chauvet. “The fact is that retailers don’t have to install big systems anymore. They can store a lot of business logic in the cloud. So our goal has been to bring big box technology to SMEs that’s ve-ry easy to use. What’s certain — and a major trend in the market — is that retailers are getting rid of their black plastic cash registers and replacing them with much simpler, user-friendly tools.” For a monthly fee, customers can ac-cess Lightspeed’s software and apps either from mobile devices or computer systems. The com-pany now has 38,000 businesses using its products worldwide.A lot of these are new brands which have understood om-nichannel very well, says Chau-vet. “They have no legacy or his-tory and tend to go with tools like ours. That generation of retailers

is booming.” Brands with a he-ritage who stubbornly refu-se to embrace omnichannel, meanwhile, are quickly finding out that it’s a case of adapt or die.

Perception versus realitySo what would Chauvet’s advice be to those retailers looking to de-velop an omnichannel strategy? “My advice would be to look at the ’perception’ of omnichannel versus the ’reality’,” he says. “The perception is that omnichannel is complicated and expensive. In reality there are tools that are simple to use and low-cost.

“Another perception is: ’It isn’t worth being online.’ Whereas the reality is that being online doesn’t mean selling online — it’s about using your online presence to bring consumers to your store and then re-engage with them easily afterwards. Another per-ception is: ’It’s going to take me years to set up.’ The reality is it’s going to take a few weeks.’”

But Chauvet’s number one re-commendation to retailers is don’t stick your head in the sand and think omnichannel is going to go away. “It isn’t going to go away,” he says. “Times are chan-ging. And that’s not because of technology vendors like us. It’s be-cause the consumer is evolving.”

JP ChauvetPresident, Lightspeed

Doug GardnerCIO, River Island

By Tony Greenway By Tony Greenway

1 Retail at Christmas has become massively about Black Friday, but last year it evolved

from being a day into a period – with no set start and end. Our research shows retailers on average plan to run campaigns lasting around 7 days this year – which helps to ease the pres-sure on operations.

2 Once you have established a timeframe for your campaign that you believe will

work for your customers, the next challenge is stimulating interest – the competition for cus-tomer spend during this period is intense, so build a strategy to help you stand out and se-cure your share.

3 It may seem a remarkably obvious point, but if any part of your site cannot cope

with the additional demand you won’t be able to take orders. Make sure to simulate high traf-fic to identify potential weaknesses in advance – including any third-party or external services that may impact your performance.

4 If you can take orders, can you fulfil them? Ensure that every department involved –

including carriers used – know what type and size of products will be discounted and when, as these are those most likely to sell in high vol-umes. Also be realistic about delivery lead-times – shoppers often prefer certainty to speed.

5 Consider post-event marketing cam-paigns – if you manage to attract new cus-

tomers by using discounting, they may have been impulse purchases; now they exist in your database, think about how you can con-vert them into return customers who value what you do and develop loyalty to your brand.

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

COMMERCIAL FEATURE

How technology will transform retail delivery

What are the delivery challenges that retailers are facing?

Ten, even five years ago, custom-ers were happy to be told when their deliveries were going to arrive. Taking a day off work to wait in for a delivery was commonplace. However today, delivery on the retailer’s, or even the carrier’s terms is no longer acceptable.

Today’s generation of Millen-nial shoppers are without a doubt the most demanding yet. They are constantly connected, tech savvy and are used to having information at their fingertips. For this ‘I want it now’ generation, deliveries should be personalised, convenient and transparent, regardless of whether a purchase is online or offline. And if it isn’t? Well today’s shoppers are more than happy to vocalise this online, or simply move to another brand that can offer a better cus-tomer experience.

Put simply - retailers’ main challenge is to offer the ultimate customer experience, from first browse, to the final product in hand.

How do you think technology will evolve to solve these challenges?

Retailers need to ensure that they can bridge the gap between online and offline channels to improve that all important customer experience. So far, we’ve seen retailers invest in technology to manage their stock more efficiently and allow for visi-bility of stock at a store level. This change will increase their flexibil-ity and also allow for fast and accu-rate fulfilment. By working in this way, retailers can effectively use their stores as mini hubs for local

fulfilment and offer both speed and convenience that is comparable to retail giants like Amazon.

Developments in retail technology have also allowed car-riers to create innovative new soft-ware. Services like On the dot rely on complex algorithms that allow carriers to manage their fleet effi-ciently and display capacity in con-venient 1-hour timeslots of the cus-tomers’ choice. When integrated into a retailer’s EPOS platform, website or app, retailers can offer their customers deliver-ies on their terms, without the customer ever leaving their retail environment.

In a recent study*, 91 per cent of millennial shoppers said that they now expect deliveries to be more transparent. On the dot offers both GPS tracking and email/SMS notifications to keep customers informed about the whereabouts

of their deliveries. This extra ser-vice is just one of the ways that retailers can increase customer experience throughout the ecom-merce journey.

So, what makes a good delivery partner?

A good delivery partner firstly has to be reliable. Many customers have a positive customer experi-ence throughout the purchasing journey, but are then let down when their parcels do not arrive at a time that’s convenient, or in some cases at all. The impact that a poor delivery experience can have is too significant to be ignored – in fact 21 per cent of UK* shoppers have posted negative feedback on social media when their deliveries have gone wrong.

Secondly, flexibility and scalabil-ity are crucial in today’s retail envi-ronment. We’ve seen both retailers and carriers pushed to absolute capacity with heightened cus-tomer expectations and increased promises from retailers during peak. Carriers need to offer flexibil-ity with their fleet at peak times to ensure that promises to customers are not broken.

Lastly, a good delivery partner is one who supports the retailer to provide not what’s best for them, but what’s best for their customer. That means a joint investment in technology, paired with a network of couriers to provide a consistent doorstep experience and allow the customer to have what they want, when they want it.

What are your predictions for the next year?

Retailers are already making steps to move towards a delivery-first model and that is set to con-

tinue in the coming years. Within the next year, convenience and speed will be the two core qualities that will shape a positive delivery experience. Same day delivery will be the industry norm, with demand shaped by retailers like Amazon and Argos who are already leading the way.

Although Click and Collect does have its place in the delivery space, moving forward it will not be a dif-ferentiator, but just another ship-ping offer that will be replaced by more innovative delivery services that can offer timeslot, hyperlocal or immediate deliveries .

One thing that is certain for the future of retail is that neither omni-channel, nor stellar customer experience are optional. Success will be determined by those retail-ers who invest in technology to cre-ate a personalised, transparent and seamless delivery experience both instore and online, integrated across devices and with convenience at heart.

Patrick GallagherCEO, On the dot

“Retailers’ main delivery challenge is to offer the ultimatecustomer experience”

* Temando (2016)

On the dot is a revolutionary service that

offers convenient 1-hour delivery windows

of the customers choice. Its RESTful APIs can

be easily integrated into a retailer’s own envi-

ronment, or it can be accessed with no inte-

gration via a web portal. For more information,

visit onthedot.com