Harmonic Retail, Self Healing Technology, Instagrammable Stores & Online to In-store Tips and Tricks

Omnichannel

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BE HONEST: Is your retail space

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Why Retailers & Shoppers Need

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Forbes

Omnichannel is out. Harmonic RetailTM is in.. . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 - 9

Entrepreneur

Brick & mortar bound? Check these boxes first. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 0 - 1 5

Luxury Daily

BE HONEST: Is your retail space Insta-worthy?. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. . . . . .1 6 - 2 1

UXmatters

Why Retailers and Shoppers Need Self-Healing Technology™. . . . . . . 2 2 - 2 9

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DITCH OMNICHAN NEW ‘HARMONIC 6

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How A Design Firm Is Helping Target, Ulta And Best Buy Ditch Omnichannel For A

Pamela N. Danziger Retail I study the world’s most powerful consumers – The American Affluent

New ‘Harmonic’ Model

Deann Campbell SVP Research & Strategy, Harbor Retail

May 2, 2019

purchase that are aligned with the organizational structure in order that results can be measured and quantified.

“You have your ecommerce team running the ecommerce site and tracking their key performance indicators. You have the store retail team doing the same thing. Each group is measured on their channel’s success,” Campbell says. “Retailers need to merge those two KPIs together so it becomes one KPI–the lifetime customer value.”

Harmonic retail flips the traditional retail model, which starts in the store and with ecommerce cobbled onto it. The new model is grounded on ecommerce and the retailers’ digital presence. All other brand touchpoints support the customer regardless of how they choose to engage, like the brick-and-mortar store, mobile apps, email, social media, print advertising and others.

A fellow Forbes.com contributor, Steven Dennis, has taken retailers to task for thinking that omnichannel strategies are the answer for what ails retail.

Numerous synonyms are cropping up, including “cross-channel integration,” “seamless shopping” or “unified commerce,” but whatever it’s called, it all comes down to one thing: Retailers are still trying to force the customer into channels, be they physical or digital, so that the retailer can manage them.

Orchestrating the customer experience Perhaps he and Harbor Retail have been reading off the same sheet of music. Harbor has trademarked the term “Harmonic Retail,” which it describes as the next evolutionary step in retail.

It is “a shift beyond converged commerce where online and offline experiences don’t merely integrate, but they interact, enrich and react upon one another

The problem for far too many retailers is that they still are stuck in their channel-centric thinking and their organizations, metrics, systems and incentives still reflect that.

“The problem for far too many retailers is that they still are stuck in their channel-centric thinking and their organizations, metrics, systems and incentives still reflect that,” Dennis wrote.

He got lyrical in suggesting the fix: “It is far better–for both customers and investors–to instead focus on delivering a harmonized experience; by which I mean focusing on eliminating the discordant notes and amplifying the wow in the customer journeys for those customers that have the greatest current and future value.”

to create a living, harmonized brand expression throughout the customer journey,” as the company describes it.

Harmonic retail has a nice ring to it, so I was eager to talk with DeAnn Campbell, director of retail strategy and development at Harbor Retail, to learn more about the concept and how retailers are implementing a new harmonized customer experience.

As Dennis notes, the idea of omnichannel retail still forces the customer along predetermined paths to

“No matter where the customer starts on their journey, the brand story is woven throughout,” Campbell explains. And today retailers have many alternative choices for how they engage, like pop-ups, vending machines, kiosks, big experiential and flagship stores and fulfillment centers. “All of these need to harmonize the brand experience and be aligned with the local market.”

With a client list that includes Nordstrom, West Elm, Starbucks and Nebraska Furniture Mart, I asked Campbell to share how retailers implement the concept of harmonic retail so that the many pieces of the retail experience are orchestrated to enhance customer engagement.

Target understands context drives the customer journey

While many retailers focus on content as the driver of the customer-retail interaction, be it product content or the content in brand marketing and messages, Campbell says that it is the context, the environment or setting in which the customer and his or her needs manifest, that is the main driver of the customer journey.

Target is a retailer that she says understands how context is more important than content. To that end, Target is rolling out a wide range of contextual formats in order to deliver the content to the customer.

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Target understands context drives the customer journey (cont.)

The checkout counter becomes a customer welcome and service center

These formats include a new urban store concept, vending formats, curbside pickup, at home delivery through Shipt and pop-ups, like last summer’s NYC Pint Shop which opened in collaboration with the Museum of Ice Cream. That collaboration also led to a Museum of Ice Cream product line in the stores.

In closing our discussion, Campbell believes the traditional retail checkout counter is where retailers need to tune into the harmonic retail opportunity.

Target’s product partners and collaborators provide both the context and the content for Target customers, including Joanna and Chip Gaines’ Hearth & Hand by Magnolia, the Stauffer Family’s Mila and Emma kids clothing collection and the limited-edition Vineyard Vines lifestyle collection.

“Target embraces the differences in its channels, and exploits them, rather than turning away from them,” Campbell says. She points to how the differences in the customers’ context impacts their journey in the Target baby department.

For example, expecting couples are the primary shoppers in store. But after birth, those shoppers largely abandon the store and shop online instead.

“Those two experiences are different and the products are different, but through it all, the customer knows it is Target,” she says.

Campbell further notes that while many other retailers are pivoting toward the next-generation millennial customer with experiences and offerings geared to them, Target recognizes the need to serve all generations equally, even seniors.

“Boomers are still producing 50% of revenue for retailers. Millennials are not the revenue drivers.

Retailers have to support all of those age groups fully,” she believes.

Ulta seamless blends the online and in-store experiences “Ulta is really tuned into their customers,” Campbell says. “They are definitely full-on harmonic retail.”

By that, she means Ulta is letting customers take the lead in ways they want to engage, with the company logging each of those interactions to enhance the customer’s experience.

She uses the example of a customer searching for mascara that doesn’t clump, a search she personally engaged in. “You go online and look for recommendations and ideas there. Then you go to the Ulta site to see how products are reviewed and recommended. Ulta remembers that,” she says.

If the customer ventures into the store with her phone in hand, the system may give you a coupon for the brand she was looking for.

Ulta uses that digital engagement further, allowing online customers to interact via popup video chat with a customer service representative. And if the customer comes to the store, she can connect online with that same person she already has an established relationship with.

Reproduction as published in Forbes

That personal touch is powerful for Ulta and also gives it staffing flexibility. “Some 90% of retailers feel their staffing models don’t work anymore,” Campbell shares. “Imagine if you had a group of your staff working at home and video chatting with customers.

That improves the customer experience over an impersonal chatbot and it helps retailers attract and retain staff.”

Best Buy educates and services customers harmonically

“Now there are so many other ways to pay, you are going to see the store evolve to recognize its primary function is customer service,” she says. “Instead of a checkout counter separate from a customer service desk, it becomes a welcome center where people can go to pick up products ordered online, try things on that may be waiting for them, return things, ask questions and engage with people.”

She foresees these new welcome/customer service centers as a crucial aspect of harmonic retail.

“You can eliminate huge checkout counters and center the store not around selling products so much as fulfilling customer needs and making them happy so they love your brand,” she shares. “Then customer service becomes an important element in the store design to go with amazing customer service.”

Best Buy is implementing harmonic retail concepts by anticipating the pain points for their customers interacting with the high-tech products it sells.

With its Geek Squad and home installation services, Best Buy eliminates the friction for customers as they bring new systems into their homes. “Elevating customer service is the cornerstone of harmonic retail,“ Campbell says.

In addition, Best Buy is putting a harmonic spin on the smart home products it displays on the store floor.

“Best Buy is pushing the envelop in terms of its IoT [Internet of Things] product displays, to provide the necessary information customers need so they can make better decisions,” she says.

Too often, Best Buy found that uninformed customers were returning perfectly good electronics because they couldn’t get them integrated with existing systems or make them work. “That reduces the return rate for retailers and significantly elevates their revenues,” she says.

Harmonic retail creates a halo effect Under the new harmonic retail model, the role of the physical store has to evolve to play a supporting rather than a starring role in the customer relationship.

It becomes the place for service when the customer needs it, while online becomes the primary vehicle to support the customer before, during and after the engagement.

“When a store opens, there is an average 20% to 30% lift in online sales in that area,” Campbell’s research shows. “The store is now generating a beautiful halo effect in the main store channel which is online.”

This is a lesson that Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette has learned the hard way. “When we close a store, we fire a customer,” he said.

Macy’s is showing signs that it is thinking harmonically too, as it is restructuring its store fleet around three models–flagships, magnet stores and neighborhood stores. Whether or not it has discovered the primacy of its ecommerce platform is yet to be determined.

www.HarborRetail.com

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Thinking About Taking Your Product Into Big-Box Stores?

Walter Miranda Guest Writer President, Harbor Retail

You Need Help in These 4 Areas Introducing your online-only product into physical stores calls for a launch playbook that’s completely different from that of the online world.

May 2, 2019

Introducing your online-only product into physical stores calls for a completely different launch playbook. But as difficult as the task ahead may be, it won’t be impossible.

Example: Quip, an oral care company, successfully launched its product in Target, one of Harbor Retail’s partners, last year. And because Quip meshed well with Target’s new “cheap chic” branding, it was able to gain an additional $40 million in equity financing, after just one fiscal quarter on the retailer’s shelves.

Placing your own product in physical stores can help you create a seamless shopping experience for your customers, test new product lines and even create brand awareness. True, web-only brands are taking over e-commerce, but companies like Casper are successful because they’re available in traditional retail stores, too.

That kind of combination works: Playing in both the online and in-store categories allows brands, especially those with new products, to double down in “the three C’s”: convenience, culture and curation, and take a deep dive into consumer experience.

That’s important because consumers are still human after all and therefore in need of physical interaction with brands and products; no wonder even Amazon is jumping into the offline game.

So, it doesn’t matter whether you are seeking a permanent retailer or are opening a pop-up store: You need to put your creative top hat back on.

Successful in-store product launches are as much about the shopper’s experience as they are about the brand’s operational efficiency and conversion metrics.

Dancing your way to an in-store launch If you can create experiences that are special enough for customers to share and memorable enough to foster repeat purchases in-store, you’ll be giving retailer procurement and merchandise teams what they need to champion your launch, as well as capture a sizable share of basket and repeat sales with greater ease.

Before you can do that, however, you’ll need to understand your brand, the channels it will sell in and the retailers it will partner with. And you can’t do all that alone. Here are the important teams you’ll need to help you:

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Channel Marketing

Channel marketing will ensure the right channels are in place for your launch. Do you need digital, mass or specialty marketing? Each channel will have different nuances that people in this role will understand.

Selling in a convenience store will be vastly different from selling through a mass merchant, for example. You won’t be changing your brand voice -- only the way you sell your product. The selling message must resonate with, and be relevant for, that channel.

Customer Marketing

Customer marketing can help you make sure the retailer you’re considering aligns with your company’s goals and values; it will ensure the retailer will be a good partner. Be as selective with your first retailers as you were with whomever you pitched for funding and whomever you recruited as your first team members. Is the retailer collaborative? What are the performance thresholds you must surpass to elevate your brand directly into marketing, store design and operations?

Retailer Marketing

Retail sales are going up. In fact, according to the U.S. Census, they hit a record high of $5.7 trillion in 2017. Inside the retailer itself, you’ll need marketers who can help determine the rules of engagement to combine customer-relationship management strategies and promotional power.

Aligning your audiences and bringing a smaller or new product to their attention will help them compete better as the landscape continues to grow.

A retailer’s store-operations team has the goal of easing field operations for everyone. These team members know the path to purchase inside and out to leverage not-so-ideal aisle placement. Use a natural shopper flow per shopper trip profile to your advantage so your products can reach the eyes -- and basket -- of the shopper across mission-based or exploratory trips.

Reproduction as published in Entrepreneur

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Ensure you layer on mission statements for each channel. Considering that 77 percent of consumers use a mobile device to find products, according to Salsify, mission statements will give additional insight into who, how and why people shop specific retailers. Also, leverage the future state of the retailer: Is it increasing its product mix to capture more of your targets? If so, you might want to double down.

Take Harry’s, the shaving company, for example. Harry’s is all about giving customers “a quality shave at a great price.” To accomplish that goal for women, as well, the brand launched Flamingo. Until February, Flamingo was available online only, but now both Harry’s and Flamingo products can be found at Target.

This is an example of a great retailer-brand match. While Harry’s offers high-quality products, service and style, Target is known for low-cost yet high-quality style, unique product lines and great service.

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Ask yourself how your shopper base can influence the retailer’s current guest base. When it comes to working with this team, partner up to improve store traffic and drive conversion. Demonstrate how your brand brings more shoppers to the store and increases total basket conversion.

For example, some holiday shopping crazes, such as Cabbage Patch Kids (1983), Furbies (1998) and Hatchimals (2017), brought in a ton of store traffic and sold out in a flash.

Store Operations

Just as when you were pitching and proving your business’s worth when you were starting out, you’ll need to hook the shopper with an authentic experience in the aisle that sells more than your features and benefits.

You might do this through in-aisle experiences or even additional services that are attached to your product lines. Ulta stores are a great example: They offer an experience, education, samples and product sales, all in one.

www.HarborRetail.com

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Stores should leverage the Instagrammable retail trend

Joe Schultz Vice President of Sales at Harbor Retail

June 24, 2019

Kodak Moment

Incorporating fun, selfie-friendly moments to attract customers and build brand awareness is not just a trend. It is quickly becoming a necessity, and chances are good that you will soon be seeing these interactive retail experiences in more than just flagship stores. They will be showing up in the entirety of a chain.

Will it be easy? Probably not.

Space can be an issue for many retailers.

Most stores budget sales per square foot, so creating a “non-selling” space means the rest of the floor must perform at a higher rate.

You also need to assign a dollar value to that space based on the estimated brand worth of an Instagrammable moment.

With glittering walls, giant glowing signs, and interactive elements, including a virtual greeter and a video booth, CoverGirl’s storefront in New York’s Times Square is nothing short of Instagram-worthy. One spot of particular interest is the artificial intelligence-enabled beauty kiosk, where shoppers can test out makeup without actually applying it. The kiosk itself even looks like a giant iPhone.

The goal was to create an experience ready-made for the social media age, when consumers are sharing photos and videos more than ever before. And CoverGirl is not alone.

One step into Glossier’s flagship store in New York’s SoHo district, and it is hard to miss how social media has influenced the design. Pink walls, a red quartz staircase, and cylindrical podiums filled with products inspire visitors to snap photos all around the store — promoting the beauty brand in the process, of course.

Besides, creating a unique Instagram-worthy space in every store can be a tall order for retailers.

It not only must align with your brand, but it must also be a memorable experience that taps into a target audience’s interests.

Black Tap started a trend that many others have mimicked.

By creating the world’s most Instagram-worthy milkshakes, the restaurant has claimed its territory in New York and on social media. Let us be real: Most people who order one of those towering milkshakes are not there to eat the whole thing.

They are thirsty for their Instagram moment.

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Camera Loves You

By creating this experience in at least one store per region, retailers can spark excitement and a desire to visit more than just the local store. Localizing the event will make brand focus more obtainable than limiting Instagram moments to a couple of flagship stores across the country.

Here are the best places to start creating an Insta-worthy experience in localized retail spaces:

Make it Aesthetically Appealing

Leverage Influencers

Be One of a Kind

Millennials and Generation Z are heavily influenced by what they see on social media.

Advertising directly through social media is always an option.

Unique is the key word to make each experience in your regional stores photo-worthy. Localization can be one way of achieving this. Another might be through products specific to that region.

According to a 2015 Instagram user survey, 60 percent of consumers said they discover new products on the platform. But without an Instagram presence, your brand will not be a factor in their purchase decision. To encourage people to share your product on the platform, you need to design in-store experiences worthy of shares.

A good place to start is with a few photo-worthy displays. Artfully arranged merchandise, for example, can inspire people to snap a pic.

Just make sure to keep displays subtle, using the less-is-more philosophy. You might also want to place your logo and a hashtag at eye level for better brand recognition.

Reproduction as published in Luxury Daily

As of 2017, more than 2 million businesses buy ads on Instagram each month. But you might get more bang for your buck by going the influencer route.

In fact, 49 percent of consumers rely on influencer recommendations for many purchase decisions — with 70 percent of teens trusting influencers more than traditional celebrities.

If you are new to influencer marketing, survey customers on their favorite influencers — or just reach out to up-and-coming influencers who have tagged products similar to your own.

Invite these influencers to your store for an event. Host a giveaway via their feeds. Ask them to post about your product.

The goal here is to appeal to the younger generation of shoppers before they place their loyalty with a competitor.

Footwear and accessory retailer Aldo recently opened a one-of-a-kind store in Toronto on Queen Street West. The new space reflects the architectural and artistic influences unique to the cultural hub, and its success could bring about localized treatments to stores around the globe.

SOCIAL MEDIA is a powerful tool to amplify a brand message. The only real obstacle for retailers is creating a space exciting enough to inspire shoppers to share.

If you focus on the experience, enlist the help of an influencer or two, and keep it unique, you should be well on your way to becoming Instagrammable.

www.HarborRetail.com 21

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WHY RETAI SHOPPERS SELF-HEALI TECHNOLOG 24

ILERS AND NEED ING GY â„¢

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Why Retailers and Shoppers Need Self-Healing Technology™ Advanced technologies for retail experiences have become so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget they’re not impervious to degradation. Most technology vendors establish support processes—with varying degrees of quality—to intervene when things go wrong for retailers. Sometimes, support

According to a recent study by Fung Global Retail & Technology, technology disruption in retail will only accelerate, so we’ve barely glimpsed what is to come. Repair and support mechanisms must become as advanced as the systems for whose maintenance we design them.

Repair and support mechanisms must become as advanced as the systems for whose maintenance we design them. means an information-technology expert is waiting to jump to action as soon as something breaks. In other cases, it’s a complicated manual that store associates must muddle through on their own.

However, neither of these scenarios will cut it in the retail landscape of the future.

That’s where Self-Healing Technology™ enters the picture. Self-healing systems automatically detect problems in their

Scott Reese Chief Technology Officer at Harbor Retail

programs and restore functionality, without requiring any human intervention.

As a chief technology officer in the retail space, I’m intimately familiar with the issue of user-experience failures, and I’ve seen self-healing systems at work firsthand.

Retailers can’t afford lapses in the user experience of their Web site or in-store Internet of Things. They must have support strategies that blend technology with the physical-store experience because that’s what shoppers demand.

Self-Healing Technology™ is essential in providing that level of support.

Self-healing systems automatically detect problems in their programs and restore functionality, without requiring any human intervention.

How Does Self-Healing Technology™ Work?

Sophisticated self-healing algorithms continuously check every aspect of a technology, including the network, hardware, software, and content.

As soon as they flag a problem, they

My team and I have conducted an informal survey of displays of several hundred screen devices from Google and Amazon, across multiple locations of several retail-store brands. More than half of the

The automatic nature of these systems yields improved performance and customer satisfaction, as well as reduced labor on the support side. trigger a series of actions to resolve it.

The automatic nature of these systems yields improved performance and customer satisfaction, as well as reduced labor on the support side.

Why does this matter for retailers? The user experience is critically important for customer retention.

screens didn’t work correctly, which was frustrating and unimpressive from the customer perspective.

Of course, you can hire a technician to constantly test and fix your devices. But what if you have hundreds or thousands of retail locations? Would you hire a technician for each one, simply to stand

guard in case something goes wrong?

While that is an option, it’s a costly one.

Many major consumer-electronics brands allocate millions of dollars each year to cover this break-fix business model.

In contrast, Self-Healing Technology™ saves enormous amounts of money in personnel costs and reduces device downtime. This technology will become much more common in the next several years. Companies are already developing self-repairing batteries, electric circuits, and smartphone screens. This technology is coming, and retailers that adopt or even require it early will gain competitive advantage.

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The User Experience and Self-Healing Technology™ One of the biggest challenges that retailers face derives from the UX-design process. UX professionals don’t typically develop programs with maintenance in mind. Plus, they usually operate in silos, away from the stakeholders who might be thinking about maintenance. A 2018 UserZoom survey of UX professionals found that 45% of respondents work on multiple products at once, and just 26% of UX teams work in cooperation with other business units.

This disjointed approach carries over to retail implementation. Retail decision makers have one set of priorities, while the professionals on their UX team have another, and no one is talking much about maintenance and support.

Therefore, they end up implementing

the most basic programs available, missing opportunities to really wow customers and win their loyalty.

an engaging user experience to explain how your brand is unique.

You need to tell your product’s story in the context of the broader ecosystem so customers can understand the full value of what you’re offering.

Unsurprisingly, this status quo in retail cannot hold. Products are becoming more complex, and they’re more interconnected than ever before. Gone are the days of touting the features and benefits of your product. You need to tell your product’s story in the context of the broader ecosystem so customers can understand the full value of what you’re offering. That’s also how you can differentiate your products: by employing

A great display user experience could help customers make sense of a product and understand what to look for in potential companion purchases. Great in-store user experiences often create a connection, driving repeat purchases and even future loyalty. But you can establish such a connection only if the user experience is high value and the in-aisle experience actually works within the last three feet of the shopping journey.

Give Customers What They’re Looking For Providing a great in-store user experience also enables customer self-education. Plus, it reduces the chance that shoppers might return products. Returns are costly.

A 2011 study by Accenture found that retailers categorized more than two-thirds of returns as “no trouble found”—meaning the only problem was that the purchase

guessing about what they need. No more frantic Web searches to find out whether a smart home device is compatible with the rest of their smart-home ecosystem.

No more leaps of faith. You can make your customers’ lives better by providing relevant information when they need it and helping them be more confident in their product choices.

But you can deliver this type of experience only if the technology you’re using functions at all times. Self-healing devices ensure that every customer enjoys a dynamic, immersive buying journey.

You can minimize returns by giving people all the data they need to make the right decision before they purchase.

No more guessing didn’t live up to the customers’ expectations. Reducing “no trouble found’ returns by just 1% would cut return costs by 4%— which would equal about $16 million in annual savings for a large retailer.

You can minimize returns by giving people all the data they need to make the right decision before they purchase. No more

However, the user experience is about more than just delivering information.

It’s about engagement. Customers love a good Easter egg hunt—quickly getting hands-on learning about a product.

So, if you can build an interactive, educational experience, immediate gratification will hook your customers.

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How to Maximize Self-Healing Technology™

To make the most of self-healing UX technologies, you must be intentional about the experience you create.

To develop a strategy that supports your brand, follow these steps.

Design an experience that can scale across all of your stores.

Don’t dumb down your technology interactions.

The interactive experience you design should be applicable to all of your retail branches.

All of your customers should associate your brand with being unique and engaging and going above and beyond other businesses in your field.

Don’t be afraid to get creative and even be a little showy in your displays. Travel brand Thomas Cook outshines its competition by giving customers five-minute vacations in New York, Germany, and Egypt through its in-store, virtual-reality installations. Customers enjoy the thrill of travel and adding a bit of whimsy to their days and link those positive concepts with the Thomas Cook brand.

If you introduce virtual-reality experiences and other hightechnology features in stores, vet your technology partners’ maintenance protocols, and opt for self-healing devices whenever possible. Nothing sours the customer experience like having your hopes dashed by a blank screen or an unresponsive app.

Resist the urge to pick the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to in-store technology.

Think carefully about the story you’re telling, then use a network of different technologies to share it. True Self-Healing Technology™ operates online or offline, so any in-store experience should incorporate this safety net.

Nike is doing groundbreaking work in this area with its artificial intelligence–enabled fit finder.

The company’s app uses augmented reality, machine learning, and computer vision to help customers find their perfect fit. When they visit a store, they already know what size they need and can focus on the footwear they want to buy.

don’t want to feel that you’re selling to them. In fact, 55% of consumers buy Develop a Customers from brands after falling in love with the company’s story. meaningful To create content that captures and converts shoppers, buying follow the four Ts of shopper-centric, in-store technology journey. and the four Fs of brand-centric, in-store technology.

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Shopper-centric technology should be timely, topical, task-oriented, and transactional.

Examples of applications of the four Ts include the following:

Timely

Using virtual reality and augmented reality for customers buying jewelry or an automobile can give them a real-time vision of the potential purchase. Body-scanning technology offers customized fit and size combinations.

customers begin showing interest in a product, your in-store technology can target Topical When promotions or offer a discounted price via signs or mobile devices.

Task-Oriented

When products are self-healing, store employees won’t have to waste time troubleshooting, which leads to greater focus on customers. Also, an employee who has all the product details at hand can save customers the trouble of having to look up that data.

and kiosks can use learning and sensor fusion to automate the payment process, Transactional Apps eliminating long checkout lines.

>

Brand-centric technology should be functional, be fact gathering, provide feedback, and be future focused.

Examples of applications of the four Fs include the following:

Functional

Fact-Gathering Feedback Future-Focused

With more and more shoppers directly connecting their opinions and their loyalty to a brand on the basis of in-store experiences and sharing them with others, it is imperative that your software, hardware, content, and power sources all be functioning properly.

Digital sales assistants help sales representatives escort customers and make decisions on the basis of their needs. Having the right questions at hand leads to the best recommendations for their current shopping needs and vice versa. Collecting and analyzing UX data can contribute a great deal to your brand’s next evolution of content and to in-aisle conversions.

Retailers can track a customer’s search, purchase, and loyalty history to ensure a personalized experience. Interactive dressing rooms can make suggestions and curate accessories that complement an outfit.

China-based JD created a digital grocery store called 7Fresh. Not only can customers scan an item and get all relevant information—such as when and where a piece of fruit was picked—the stores also feature hands-free shopping carts.

The best UX strategies rely on such a frictionless transition between digital and physical brand touchpoints. As consumers expect more and more sophisticated experiences, Self-Healing Technology™ will become ever more important. Downtime will not be an option, and devices must delight and inform customers everywhere they are, at all times. www.HarborRetail.com 29

Deann Campbell SVP, Research & Strategy Harbor Retail

Walter Miranda President Harbor Retail

Joe Schultz Vice President of Sales Harbor Retail

Scott Reese Chief Technology Officer Harbor Retail

www.HarborRetail.com

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