Multi-Channel Commerce & Retailing

The power of the web has always enthralled me. It truly has changed our lives in so many multiple ways. My consulting assignments on retail and ecommerce have taken me through various personas that have been created and reached out to by most of the web companies. But at times I have wondered how much of an effect would the web world have on a differently abled person. Has ecommerce companies of the world thought of a differently-abled persona? A population size to the tune of almost 10% (650 million) of the world’s total population and a great potential for revenue generation? Has the power of the web changed their world too?

During an impending client visit at Bangalore, I was in discussion with Dr. Jai Ganesh and Dr. Ajay Kolhatkar (from Infosys) on the potential demos that we can organize. And by pure co-incidence, I came across the in-house developed web accessibility tool called iProwe. And all the answers that I was looking  for seemed to be addressed by this one tool.
 
According to the United Nations Global Audit for Web Accessibility, almost 97% of the world wide web do not meet the prescribed accessibility requirements for differently abled users. This means a person who is visually challenged and cannot read images, the hearing impaired who cannot listen to audio, users with colour blindness, users with motor disabily thus impairing their use of a mouse or keyboard, users with cognitive disabilities and elderly people who cannot read small fonts cannot access the websites that you and me frequent every day. As a result, this potential revenue pool has never been tapped.
 
A web accessibility tool like iProwe help companies make their websites friendlier for the differently abled. And this can have multiple ramifications. But even before we go into the commercials of making websites accessible, let us understand why even a ecommerce company would think of implementing this when their sales revenue on a QoQ and a YoY have always been showing growth (Maybe not during a downturn though). Most developed nations have legislations and regulations in place which necessitates websites to be accessible for the differently abled. To quote a few, in the US, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act Amendments, 1998 allows federal employees with disabilities to file complaints if they are not accommodated. The British Standards Institution (BSI) Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 78 is applicable for all organizations and is intended for use by those commissioning or maintaining public facing websites and web based services. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has laid down clear guidelines specifying accessibility of websites. This along with many other nations like Australia, Canada, Germany, France, Netherlands and other in the European Union have set guidelines for enabling the web for the differently abled.

Now coming to the economics which will be of interest for every web company. Apart from being a newer segment which would mean higher revenue, more so in a downturn when you wish your sales figures would keep moving northwards, an accessible website can significantly reduce the marketing cost of reaching out to the differently abled – to the tune of 12-35%. In addition to that, accessible web pages take upto 75% lesser time to load. It also shows a significant increase in the natural search engine traffic.

The patent pending iProwe automatically analyses the accessibility issues of websites and recommends remedial measures. It combines multi level scanning allowing the tool to scan multiple level of websites against a set of intelligent rules and recommendations derived from several accessibility guidelines and accessibility design best practices and generates ready to use reports in convenient forms. The tool’s intelligent crawling engine has an advanced algorithm based on a variety of disability profiles and meets the WCAG 1.0  and WCAG 2.0  accessibility standards. The tool also uses a rich repository of design best practices for website accessibility taken from across industries like retail, financial services, insurance which gives it the edge over its nearest competitors in the market.

This has indeed been an amazing revelation. I am sure in my next ecommerce engagement, I can confidently suggest the client an additional persona which will open up an entirely newer segment of target consumers for them.

The choice is clear. The benefits are clearer. Web companies can wait for legislations to be enforced or proactively owns social responsibility and open up their doors for the differently abled.

Notable links :
(i) Infosys iProwe : http://www.infosys.com/iprowe/default.asp
(ii) Section 508 of Rehabilitation Act :  
      http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=14
(iii) British Standards Institution PAS :
      http://www.bsigroup.com/en/About-BSI/News-Room/BSI-News-Content/Sectors/ICT-- Telecommunications/News-Content5/

Posted by Rrituraj Sharma at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I came across a compact sample of typical EDW reports utilized to track and support Retail decision making, when trawling across Teradata’s website (https://www.teradata.com/t/assets/0/206/280/fbff8440-b4c5-4211-a03a-c933460f35e0.pdf). It raises the question for many organisations as to whether the time spent deploying custom developed reporting and processes for their EDW could not be better served by moving to a purpose built solution such as provided by the leading EDW vendors

In times past a company would ‘lock in’ key learning and intellectual property through the development of complex custom designs in back end Retail analytics. Focusing on maximising Customer data allowed a Retailer to:
·         Use market basket data to help guide promotional activity and planning.
·         Manage vendors based on their importance to the business.
·         Modify localized assortments by store to satisfy profitable customers.
·         Review product sales and inventory channel.
·         Monitor and proactively manage vendor performance.
Having developed such monitoring and reporting capabilities an organization was faced with the challenge of maintaining the designs and reports to keep the necessary levels of granularity and relevance, as well as reflecting any functional or performance improvements on the base platform. Such a custom design would, however, impose restrictions on smooth platform transition and may have missed any new developments from the supplier e.g. Purpose built retail process designs and reports. While these ‘native’ equivalents may have lacked the detail and insight of a Retailer’s own reporting, developments in the market have allowed experience with multiple customers to be incorporated by platform vendors (in a space such as EDW) into their core products. This has enriched the level of ‘out of the box’ reporting so that similar reports are now considered standard functionality. A sample of such reports used for Decision analysis, for example as deployed by Teradata EDW, are as follows:
·         Merchandise Unit Performance (for a Product, All Locations)
·         Flash Sales Report (a Location by Product Groups)
·         Price Point Analysis (by Product Groups for all Locations)
·         Lost Sales (Potential Sales) Analysis (by Products for all Locations, for a
·         product group)
·         Stock and Sales (by Products and by Locations)
·         Sales and Profitability (by locations and by products)
·         Trend Reporting (a Product Group by Weeks)
·         Fast, Slow Sellers (by Items)
·         Markdown Analysis (by Product Groups)
·         Cluster Performance (by two Item Traits)
·         Average per Store (by Products/Product Groups)
·         Price Point (by Location, by Week, Crosstab)
·         Vendor Sales and Stock (by Vendors, graph)
·         Vendor Comparison Performance, Profitability (by Vendors)
·         Rate of Sales
·         Pre, During, Post Promo Sales and Margin (by Products/Product Groups)
·         Product Affinity (by Affinity Products)
·         Price Point Sensitivity Market Basket Analysis (by Price Points)
·         Sales, Expense, and Labour (by Locations)
·         Top 100 Customers (by Customers)
·         Potential Lost Customers (by Customers)
·         Cross Channel Performance (by Channels)
·         Average Market Basket (MKB)
·         Statistics (by Product/Product Group)
I thought this would be a nice ‘sanity check’ for an organization to firstly, compare and assess any ‘holes’ in current report coverage but secondly, to open a debate within the organization as to whether it is tracking the correct reporting metrics. As often happens, a tracked metric mandates a behaviour which allows it to be met. So while these metrics could be considered to be based upon a ‘system’ perspective, they do provide a benchmark for the ‘minimum set’ an organization might expect. And, referring back to the custom development path mentioned earlier, possibly an initial argument for investigating a change of solution towards exactly such an ‘off the shelf’ solution (if a significant amount of overlap is seen between current ‘custom’ reporting and these ‘standard’ product reports).
And while we are talking comparative studies, here is a look at some work SAP did on a “Future Retail Centre” (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/index?rid=/library/uuid/f08ba07d-fe2b-2c10-5c89-b66f3e0c6dd3&overridelayout=true#4) . SAP Research built this “Future Retail Centre” in Regensdorf, Switzerland together with academic, technology and industry partners to showcase research developments and retail thought-leadership. This demonstrated a consumer-oriented walk-through together with a logistics environment and looking at tools for a typical retail headquarters.
The consumer scenario reflected unique shopping styles and followed a hurried “quick shopper” with a mobile phone shopping list. Using this device the shopper was guided via a map through the store and a two-touch mobile payment or scan utilised   to facilitate the buying process. A more leisurely “weekend shopper” could gain access to product information through a personalized shopping cart and the immediate, RFID-based tallying of products chosen. An optic weight scale and point-of-interest advertising triggered by the customized shopping cart completed the customer-centric shopping experience (shown on the relevant ‘shelves’.
In the logistics scenario, a warehouse was set up with a labelling machine which applied RFID tags to the cases which are then used in processes such as picking of mixed pallets, packing and goods issue / goods receipt, all enhanced and optimized thanks to RFID. A new addition to the Future Retail Centre showed pallet movements with a forklift truck which had been enhanced to automatically read its position through RFID chips in the floor and thus reduce errors in scanning locations.Retail headquarters concerned with analysis and optimization of pricing could utilize a “Price Zone Optimization” algorithm which uses historic point of sales information to guide a retailer through setting up a new pricing strategy.
In the management of vending machines, capturing real-time inventory is the basis for accurate accounting as well as replenishment optimization. The Smart Vending application sent data of each transaction as it happens to the ERP system.
 In addition, the Future Retail Centre can utilize Second Life as both a visualization and collaboration tool for Retail Management, as well as exploring its potential as an alternative shopping ‘channel’. ‘Food for thought’ and worth considering whether these really are ‘future’ concepts or whether they may be achievable in the medium term after all.

Posted by Billy Byatt at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my recent business travels I have started noticing more and more airlines offering wireless internet services aboard their flights.  Wi-Fi is being offered to all passengers, not just the business class fliers, essentially opening up a whole new world of e-commerce.

Currently airlines such as Jet Blue, Airtran, Delta, Virgin, and American have partnered up with services like Go Go to offer passengers a free pass during their flight to experiment with the online in-flight experience.  Jet Blue even went as far as to invite you tubers and bloggers to a sample flight to write about their experiences and share amongst their audiences.

Aside from the convenience and efficiency it offers when traveling on a regular basis (which as a consultant I greatly appreciate), it also has the potential to drastically change the way we do business.  Airlines have struggled with their duty free sales on planes, and their paper catalogs offering knick knacks in their Sky Mall are not maximizing on their potential to reach consumers.  Having a consumer’s undivided attention on an airplane for an extended period of time could provide some very exciting opportunities.  Here are some ideas…

SKY MALL

For example, the concept of an interactive sky mall online could be quite appealing.  Passengers would be more inclined to browse through products, and might even apply product rating, and consumer comments to the products providing merchants with feedback on the products. 

It would be great for example, for passengers to have a virtual mall of the duty free of the airport they will be landing in.  This way they could browse, search, purchase online in the air, and have the purchases delivered to them while they land, or if they are in transit.  Airports tend to be extremely vast and passengers don’t always have the time and energy to go through all the stores, but by having the chance to see what is available and making their purchase decision online it can increase the sales opportunities at airports and on airplanes.

ENTERTAINMENT

Through internet access, airlines can offer a much wider range of entertainment services to their passengers, through a library of movies and shows that are not always available in flight.  Passengers on 16 hour – 24 hour flights could catch up on shows they are missing back home, or watch their Netflix movie off of their queue keeping themselves more entertained. 

ADVERTISING

Mobile media companies such as JiWire have already started launching the world’s first ad-supported Wi-Fi network for commercial airlines.  Row 44’s Skytown Center will incorporate a virtual shopping mall approach by calling upon 100 advertisers lined up to reach a very captive audience.   JiWire is focused on an ad-supported model, where they would provide the equipment, which then helps airlines manage the costs of having to offer free Wi-Fi now simply as a cost of doing business for travelers expecting it.

The audience is apparently eager for such a service. According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, 76% of business travelers surveyed said they were likely to choose an airline based on Wi-Fi availability, while 70% would prefer Wi-Fi service over meal service on flights.

Now if only they could figure out how to let us keep our cell phones and ipods on during take offs and landings!   Oh and battery outlets will also become a necessity to enable passengers to be plugged in and online during long international flights.

Posted by Behnaz Ghahramani at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Since the birth of virtual reality, developers have strived towards developing virtual environments, and with manufacturers developing more powerful computers at more affordable prices this dream doesn’t seem so far away.

Playstation Home is an example of such a virtual environment; it seems that sitting in your home playing online on your Playstation is not enough. Instead, you have to be a virtual person sitting in your virtual home, playing a game online…virtually.

Recently, the approach to virtual reality has taken a spin and is instead focussed on bringing the real and the virtual together. Enter augmented reality (AR).

What is augmented reality? eMagin.com says:
‘[Augmented reality] refers to a display in which simulated imagery, graphics, or symbology is superimposed on a view of the surrounding environment’

Put simply, augmented reality displays overlays over the top of real scenery captured through the camera of a phone, PDA, or computer. This has already been seen in several places, including the ‘Metro Paris Subway’ app for the iPhone, and the ‘Wikitude AR travel’ app for the G1.

Metro Paris Subway is an app currently available on the iPhone and takes full advantage of augmented reality. A user can look through the camera and see the scenery on the screen. As the user pans the camera around they can see overlays of nearby shops and their distances from the user’s position. More information can be found about this app here: http://www.metroparisiphone.com

The Wikitude AR travel app is currently available on smartphones using the Google Android platform. This app displays information on the surroundings such as places of interest as the user moves the camera around the scenery. More information can be found here: http://www.wikitude.org/world_browser
So what are the benefits of augmented reality?

With AR a customer no longer has to go into a store or visit online to see details about a retailer. Using their phone the user can simply view the information about that store on their screen, a bit like a visual interactive version of the Internet.

Here are just some examples of how a retailer can use AR to their advantage:

1. A retailer can use the overlays to promote seasonal offers or use it for merchandising opportunities – these
could be displayed when the store is viewed through the camera

2. Customers can see opening times for a store or office just by viewing the building through the camera

3. Retailers could setup overlay information on products to display cross sell/up sell opportunities when the
customer views the product through the camera

4. Customer can see the website URL and phone number for the store or office

Of course there are challenges with augmented reality (AR). Its operation is entirely based on the fact that consumers have phones capable of running AR apps, and assumes that consumers will be happy to walk around scanning their environment with their phones. However with the Smartphone market booming AR could be more widespread than at first anticipated.

Gartner:

‘Smartphone sales in Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) totaled 11.7 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 38.7 percent increase from the first quarter of 2008
In North America, smartphone sales totaled 7.3 million units in the first quarter of 2008, a 106.2 percent increase from the same period last year.’

The question now remains: Which retailer will be the first to dive into this new technology? I’d be interested to hear about other experiences you have had with AR and any new applications for it.

Posted by Jonathan Nobbs at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)