Get With the Times, Retail
December 18, 2009 by Daniel Rose
I am completely drawn to Swipe bookstore on Richmond Street in Toronto. They sell books on design, architecture, marketing and other creative disciplines. It has a magnetic hold over me, yet the magnet seems to not disable my credit card for some reason.
I was there yesterday with Tom Crawford. He has a device called an “iPhone” made by a company called “Apple.” Tom spied a book that looked interesting to him, took out his iPhone and started to take a picture of it. Before he could release the shutter, one of the store employees practically leaped out from behind the counter and briskly came over to Tom and asked “is there something I can help you with?”, which was clearly a euphemism for “put away your damn phone and stop taking pictures.” Her explanation was that no retail stores would permit someone to take pictures within a retail environment, presumably for competitive reasons.
That’s Retail 1.0. Get with the times, Retail.
Here is what Tom was doing: Tom was using his iPhone and an application called SnapTell to photograph the book cover and use that information to search the internet for reviews of the book. It was a fairly specialized book on infographics and diagrams so there is a good chance that he might recognize one of the reviewers and be able to make a more informed decision as to whether or not to get the book. Granted, Tom’s query also returned price comparisons from many other retailers and Swipe wasn’t the cheapest. Tom didn’t get the book.
The point is that with cool image recognition technology like SnapTell (and the equivalent for audio, Shazam), combined with ubiquitous computing and internet (see the TED talk by Pranav Mistry), shoppers will be armed with a lot more information with which to make decisions. Shoppers’ social networks will be constantly over their shoulder in the store offering advice and retailers better be prepared to be a valuable part of the real time conversation.
This is a great post Daniel. The simple fact is that consumers are tapping into their networks to make purchasing decisions every day and with mobile technology can do that right at the store level.
Retailers have always been super conscious of the competitive nature of the business and not allowing photographs to be taken in the store goes back eons. This is such antiquated thinking. Many consumers do their research on line for price and peer recommendations before they even walk into a store. We know what products cost and who has the best price and service before our feet are on the street.
The ability to use SnapTell or to Tweet the cover out for more info is becoming more and more commonplace.
Retailers, like many other businesses, have to learn to let go of many of their old habits. What’s the axiom? The strong survive. This marks a turning point in history and the evolution of retail.
Those who can embrace, adapt to and incorporate this new thinking into their establishments and practices will surely survive. Those who don’t? Well, there’s a story about a dodo bird there somewhere I’m sure
Thanks for the comment Paige. Very insightful. There were some additional thoughts that I had that seemed a little off topic for this post but were related. I’ll throw them in now!
I was pondering the balance of price versus experience. In the Swipe example, I’m glad that the bookstore is there. I’m glad it’s downtown in a prime location. I go there to peruse and relax. I do buy stuff from there but if it’s really easy for me to check on the price of a product at their competitor, I might be more hesitant to make that purchase. The aggregate effect of similar behaviour is that people want the store to be there but aren’t willing to support it when it comes time to whipping out their wallet.
The question becomes how much more, if anything, are customers willing to pay for the retail experience and knowledgeable, passionate staff.
What changes will retail have to make in the immediate future to justify higher prices for the product?
And here’s a link to a NY Times article that is apropos to this conversation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/business/03unboxed.html?ref=technology
Nice post Dan. Agree 100% I never understood the no photography policy, even before that new-fangled machine called the “iPhone” by that company called “Apple.”
What’s the risk? That I’m going to open a store just like yours? If that’s all it takes to be better than you then you got bigger problems my friend.
I was LOLing at Jodi’s reply, only because I have the same exact sentiment. What’s the fuss really? I also don’t get the no photo policy of stores.