11 Trends in the Future of Retail According to Brian Solis

EXPERIENCE ARCHITECTURE
WHAT DOES THE FUTURE OF ETAIL/RETAIL LOOK LIKE?

Gift of Perspective:
Consumer behavior and expectations
break legacy processes and systems.
Customer experience takes architecture
and fresh perspective to design the future
and everything starts with #empathy

The State of Retail and
Commerce in 1 Picture

Digital transformation
represents the quest
to understand how
disruptive technology
affects the digital
customer experience.

You are now trying to capture the attention of an audience
with an audience of audiences.
MEET GENERATION-C

WHAT
WOULD THE
WORLD
LOOK
LIKE
IF I
COULD START
FROM SCRATCH?

Connected customers see
the world differently. They’re
“always on.”
THINK.LIKE.THE.
CUSTOMER

New Supply
New Demand
New Behavior
TRUST
REPUTATIO
N
CURATION

Master Total Re-CXing
People look at their phones 1,500x each week.
They spend 177 minutes on their phone per day.
Facebook, Instagram, et al. is second nature.
SnapChat is a marketplace for human emoticons.
Youtube is the new Google.

On-Demand Economy:
Retail and e-tail will plug into the
on-demand economy.

Customer Experience:
Retailers will need to compete
through customer experience in
addition to technology.

CX = Customer experience
is the sum of all
engagements a customer
has with you during the
customer lifecycle.

82% of shoppers will complete their online
purchase with e-tailers that offer free return
shipping or in-store returns.
Customers who could ship items back for free
boosted their purchases at that store by 58%-to-
357%.
Customers who were charged for return
shipping dropped their purchase activity by
74%-to-100%.
Only 49 of the merchants in its Top 500 Guide
offered free return shipping as of last January

Customer Loyalty is Getting a Makeover
Loyalty cards are on their way out and will be
replaced by targeted, data-driven, personalized
rewards derived through:
 Transactional data
 Demographic data
 Social data
 CRM data
 Existing loyalty data
 Proprietary data
 Sensor data
 Supply chain data
 Location data

60% of consumers use their smartphones to
pay because of the loyalty benefits that they
get when they do.

Payments:
Payment options lead to retailer
confusion but open door to new
forms of insight and engagement.

MOBILE PAYMENTS EARLY TODAY, BUT EXPECTED TO SKYROCKET

Nearly 15% of Starbucks customers
already pay with their phones

Wearables help bring multiple
features to mobile payment,
make payment process even
more seamless

New Payment Companies Bring eCommerce to a
New Generation of Disruptors

Re-Engineering Payments, Checkouts and CRM

Social Commerce:
Social networks become the new e-
commerce platform.

Merchants will continue to chase mobile customers with ads
as well as sites optimized for those mobile viewers

The Trust Economy:
The trust economy encourages peer-to-
peer influence (social proof), forces
transparency and pushes retailers to
market utility and usefulness to guide
decision making (reciprocity).

eCommerce further fueled by the
trust economy.
Airbnb travelers contributed 14
million new reviews over a 12
month period, a year over year
rise of 140%.

90%of smartphone users are not
absolutely certain of the specific
brand they want to buy when they
begin looking for information online.

65%of smartphone users look for the most relevant information
regardless of the company providing the information.

Combine Content + Commerce
Birchbox creates high-
quality content to generate
repeat business.
Its blog is packed with “how-
to” guides and style tips that
rival Cosmo and GQ.
You can buy any of the
items featured.

Double Down on Video
According to Cisco, by 2017, video will
account for 69% of all consumer
internet traffic.
As shoppers grow more responsive
to visual presentation and seek
responsive layouts, video will become
a front-and-center asset to convey
product details -- not just demos -- and
facilitate improved webrooming.

Within one week of launching, Viking received
nearly 1,000 high-resolution photos and videos
from guests showcasing their travel
experiences. Content covered 100%of Viking’s
itineraries; 98% was linkable to the itinerary
page for a specific cruise, with an average of
over 40 photos and/or videos per itinerary.

The future of the receipt…a new publishing
and engagement medium?
E-tailers and retailers are now able to
tailor the receipt to enhance the
customer experience post transaction.
Companies can also feed insights and
analyticss to empower affiliate
networks.

Webrooming and Showrooming:
Retailers invest in technology and
experiences to promote webrooming and
showrooming to their advantage.

• Webrooming more common than showrooming (69% to 46%
respectively), according to Harris poll
• Millennials prefer webrooming
• Amazon remains #1 for both showrooming and webrooming

Reverse Engineering etail and Webrooming/Showrooming to Improve
Retail Experiences

Reasons for Webrooming vs. Showrooming:
47% don't want to pay for shipping
23% didn't want to wait for the product to delivered
46% like to go to a store to touch and feel a product before they buy
36% will ask the store to price match a better price found online
37% like the option of being able to return the item to the store if needed
Source: Merchant Warehouse 2014

The Future of Retail:
3d printing, IoT, virtual displays and
personalization technology creates
dymamic shelves and racks unique to
each user and redesigns inventory and
supply chain in the process.

Big Data & Beacons: Connecting online, in-app,
and in-store experiences
• Footfall, visits online, visits through apps
• Regency and frequency of visits, behaviors and transactions
• Brand affinities
• Favorite products
• Demographics
• Location
• Loyalty program utilization
• Service quality, queue and abandonment
• Capacity planning and resource utilization
Beacons provide businesses with endless opportunities to collect massive amounts of
untapped data, such as the number of beacon hits and customer dwell time at a particular
location within a specified time and date range, busiest hours throughout the day or week,
number of people who walk by a location each day, etc. This data then allows retailers to
accordingly make improvements to products, staff allocation in various departments and
services, and so on.

At the end of my session, the mirror gave me the
option to check out right from my stall."
The smart room recognized the shirt, recommend
clothes to pair with it, and sent instructions to a
sales clerk — if I needed another size or color, for
example.

The Shopper Journey:
Online apps and experiences
influence decision-making and
journeys. Retailers will eliminate
friction and re-design the
online/offline journey.

Customers consult 11 information sources on
average before making a purchase.

Is it true mobile search has overtaken desktop search?

66% of all time spent on
ecommerce sites is done
on mobile.
91% of ecommerce sites
that are not responsive.
61% of customers leave a
site if it isn’t mobile-friendly

Smartphone users will immediately switch to
another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their
needs (your site is too slow).

Micro-moments unfold through a
variety of common “I want”
scenarios that help people take
steps or make decisions
I want to learn…
I want to buy…
I want to know…
I want to go…
I want to do…

Customer
expectations are
influenced by
experiences
engaging with
other industries.

Businesses that focus on
micro-moments, human-
centered behaviors and
expectations and related
tech, will naturally re-
imagine the customer
journey, upgrade their
experience and modernize
the brand for the digital
economy.

Social Objects
1. Data
2. Personalization
3. Engag`ement
4. Relationship
Identify Driven Marketing Starts Here

Innovation Centers:
Retailers get into the innovation
game to test new tech and better
understand digital customers.

“IT and digital is pervasive in
people’s lives now. So the advice I
would give somebody starting it now
is, think of yourself like a consumer
technology company.”
- Starbucks

“A lot of work Labs is doing is
focused on understanding the
shopper, the actual consumer,
relationship with the brand. It's
about how we facilitate the ability
for any kind of engagement,
anywhere, anytime, any way.
‘Shop my way.’
- Andy Hedges, Director of Shopping Centre Management
and Marketing, Westfield

“When we think about ourselves, we think about constantly
innovating and staying ahead of the curve,” says Bridget Dolan, vice
president, Sephora Innovation Lab.
“The mission is to make sure we are listening to our clients’ needs,
our internal employees and the ideas they have, and keeping a finger
on the pulse of trends, all the while competing with ourselves to
make sure we’re always innovating.”

Space 2.0:
Retail space is a blank canvas
for re-imaging the shopper
experience.

“Telstra will remain relevant forever,” said David Thodey,
CEO of Telstra as it shifted its focus toward digital growth.
Speaking at the Australian Digital Summit, he pointed to
Sony as a company that had not moved with the times. “You
need to be bold, and you need people who are going to test
you and drive you forward,” he said.

Designed to blur the lines between digital and physical worlds and to
provide customers with a personalized experience.
The price tags in the store have been printed from digital ink,
meaning prices can be adjusted centrally and instantly.
“We've got to make that seamless experience. It doesn't matter
where you touch us – anywhere in Australia, online, any retail
presence, or when you call us.”

Vision +
Empowerment
New Models, Processes, Systems
to Support a Unified Digital
Customer Experience
Understand the New
Customer
Design the Digital
Customer Experience

Behind every screen,
every expression and
impression, is a human
being…not a consumer.

Txt “Experience” to 33444
For This Presentation
bsolis@prophet.com | Altimeter Group, a Prophet Co.
briansolis.com | @briansolis
Linkedin.com/influencer/briansolis
Facebook.com/thebriansolis

11 Trends in the Future of Retail According to Brian Solis

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