Tag: retail

Adobe To Supercharge Retail Management With HoloLens Apps

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Adobe has created three apps for Microsoft HoloLens that aims to supercharge retail management via data visualization. As reported by ZDNet, the trio of new AR apps consist of:

• Traffic paths. Using the HoloLens, store managers can view augmented data above the floor of a store showing what percentage of people have traveled down those paths. This would likely be recorded with beacons or cameras.

• Digital mirror overlays. By overlaying graphics onto a smart mirror, a store manager can see information about user demographics, such as how many items have been tried on in which color, and how many of those purchases converted

• Giving voice agents an augmented display. Screens provide a canvas for rich information display and interactivity that isn’t practical with voice output, at least today. By taking advantage of a virtual display, HoloLens users can interact with an agent such as Cortana and see visualized analytic information about their businesses wherever they might be in a room.

What Brands Need To Do
These new AR apps developed by Adobe highlight the potential of augmented reality in business use cases, granting retail managers the superpower of understanding customer behaviors and traffic patterns in stores in real time, which, in turn, allows them to more effectively allocate their resources and offer better customer services.

This retail use case is but one of the many ways augmented reality will transform the customer experience and help brands blend their digital assets into real-world scenarios. As AR technology continues to develop apace, more brands need to start thinking about ways that they can leverage it to create an enhanced customer experience with contextual and personalized offers.

Source: ZDNet

 

Starbucks Enhances Mobile Reward Program With Bingo Game

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Starbucks added a new feature in its mobile app to make its already-popular rewards program more addictive. Aptly named Bonus Star Bingo, this new feature adds a gaming twist to its mobile rewards program, prompting customers to fill out their bingo cards by using the mobile app to pay for purchases at specific times of the day or for specific items to win more “stars”, which is what Starbucks’ rewards points are called. Customers can win up to 300 stars for filling out the entire virtual bingo card. To promote the launch, the national coffee chain also launched a standalone site to demonstrate the game as well as a social media campaign with sponsored posts and a #BonusStarBingo hashtag.

What Brands Need To Do
This smart addition should help Starbucks continue to fuel its growth in mobile ordering, which accounted for 7% of all transactions in the last quarter. By making a game out of mobile purchases and earning reward points, Starbucks introduces strong incentives for customers to make repeated purchases and boost mobile app usage. This new feature should serve an inspiration for brands looking to more effectively engage their customers on mobile and revamp their rewards program to boost sales. CPG and QSR brands, in particular, should consider tying purchases to a reward program that is easily accessible and manageable on mobile and making it fun and interactive by adding game-like features.

 

Source: Mobile Commerce Daily

Lowe’s Uses VR To Teach Customers How To Tile A Bathroom Wall

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Home improvement brand Lowe’s is leveraging VR experience to offer customers a hands-on practice of tiling a bathroom wall. The company is currently running this VR learning initiative, dubbed “the Holoroom How To experience,” at select store locations in Boston and Canada, where a customer enters a virtual room, put on an HTC Vive headset, and uses the Vive controller to simulate mixing mortar and placing tile. Lowe’s says it is planning to offer a broader range of tutorials in more stores to help boost Millennial consumers’ confidence in taking on DIY home improvement projects.

What Brands Need To Do
VR can be a powerful learning tool for educating customers and for demonstrating new products. According to Lowe’s, customers in a trial run scored a 36% better recall on how to complete the tiling project when compared to those who watched a tutorial video on YouTube. This initiative also goes beyond simple 360-degree video content to engage customers with an interactive experience, which more brands should start doing if they wish to fully explore the potential of VR

How We Can Help
Our dedicated team of VR experts is here to guide marketers through the distribution landscape. We work closely with brands to develop sustainable VR content strategies to promote branded VR and 360 video content across various apps and platforms. With our proprietary technology stack powered by a combination of best-in-class VR partners and backed by the media fire-power of IPG Mediabrands, we offer customized solutions for distributing and measuring branded VR content that truly enhance brand messaging and contribute to the campaign objectives.

If you’d like to learn more about how the Lab can help you tap into the immersive power of VR content to engage with customers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

Source: CNN Money

Header image courtesy of Lowe’s press release

Soylent Creates Conversational Virtual Assistant For Its Online Shop

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Meal-in-a-bottle substitute maker Soylent has created a virtual assistant named Trish for its online shop to guide customers through the purchase process. Instead of using natural language input, Trish offers a menu of topics and answers that customers can click through to learn more about Soylent and its different product flavors. Once they select a flavor they like, Trish will prompt customers with a question of how many bottles they’d like to purchase and redirect them to the shopping cart for checkout.

What Brands Need To Do
Despite being a fairly low-tech version of a chatbot, Soylent’s new virtual shop keeper adds a conversational touch to the process of product discovery and site navigation of its online store. The addition of this conversational layer fosters a kind of user-friendliness that separates the customer experience from other online shopping experiences, where customers are bombarded with tons of options to choose from and left to their own devices. More brands, especially those that sells to customers directly online, need to evaluate their online customer experience and consider adopting conversational interfaces to guide customers with a simpler, more intuitive experience.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Soylent

Viber Partners With Macy’s And Rakuten To Bring Shopping Into Chat App

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Messaging app Viber, which enjoys 260 million monthly active users worldwide, announced the launch of a new in-chat Instant Shopping feature that will integrate ecommerce features directly into the app. The new feature will enable Viber users to search for and share items without leaving the chat window, though the chat app has yet to integrate a payment solution so shoppers will be directed to the third-party retailer to complete the purchase.

The company says it has forged partnerships with two major retailers at launch – Macy’s and Rakuten.com, the ecommerce site formerly known as Buy.com was acquired by Japanese tech titan Rakuten in 2010, who also acquired Viber in 2014. The new feature will become available in the U.S. on March 6 in beta and Viber plans to roll out the feature globally throughout 2017.

What Brands Need To Do
Conversational commerce has been gaining traction in the U.S. lately thanks to Amazon Alexa’s ecommerce integrations and Facebook’s continuous efforts to make Messenger retail-friendly. As the big tech companies continue to explore the ecommerce potential in conversational contexts to cater to changing consumer behavior on mobile and a shift in brand-customer interaction, brands and retailers need to take note and start experimenting with conversational commerce in order to stay ahead of the digital curve.

How We Can Help
Based on our extensive experience in building branded chatbots to reach consumers, the Lab has developed a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational experience supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data. If you’re interested in learning more about this or have a client opportunity, please reach out to our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Google And Ivyrevel Developing App That Design Dresses Based On Personal Data

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Google is teaming up with Ivyrevel, an online-only women’s fashion brand backed by H&M, to develop an Android app that can design a dress for you based on your contextual and activity data, such as location, weather, and physical activity.

Dubbed “Data Dress,” the app will analyze the personal data input, including their activity data once the users opt in. Specifically, the app will use the Google’s Snapshot API to monitor the person’s daily activities, including things like where they went, where they eat dinner or hang out, how often they work out, and so on, for a week and come up with a dress design that best fits their lifestyle. Users will be able to buy the personalized dress directly from the app if they like what they see.

What Brands Need To Do
This app presents an interesting case of how brands can leverage machine learning to offer personalized products and services. For brands, especially those in fashion and retail, it is important to recognize the possibility that AI-powered solutions unleash, which very much relies on the kind of customer data that brands can supply. Therefore, brands should start thinking about what kind of customer data they can feed into machine learning services to gain consumer insights and supplement their targeting and personalization effort, as well as coming up with a clear value exchange they can offer consumers for that data.

 

Source: TechCrunch

 

Header image courtesy of Ivyrevel

Walmart Drops Membership Requirement For Two-Day Delivery

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Walmart has discontinued the $49-per-year membership program ShippingPass it introduced in June for two-day delivery service, as the big-box retailer continues to challenge Amazon’s dominance in ecommerce. Accompanying this announcement, Walmart is also lowering its free shipping order minimum from $50 to $35. Over two million items will be available for free express delivery service, according to Walmart. In comparison, Amazon sells Prime Membership, which includes free two-day delivery on over 50 millions of items with no minimum per order, for $99 a year.

What Brands Need To Do
While it seems unlikely that Walmart will be able to convince the majority of Amazon Prime members to switch, the move at least shows Walmart is determined to compete with Amazon for the non-Prime U.S. households. As more and more consumers turn to online shopping for the convenience and flexibility, brick-and-mortar retailers need to learn from their online competitors and start branching out into the ecommerce space and exploring new ways to modernize their shopping experience.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience working with retail, beauty, and CPG clients to create and implement digitally-enhanced experiences for their stores. The recently-opened NYX Cosmetics store at Union Square is a proud showcase of our team’s work in crafting a digitally enhanced, innovative retail experience. If you’d like to learn more about how your brand can develop an updated retail strategy and implement digital-driven solutions to transform your retail experience, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source:ReCode

Alexa Can Now Take Your Starbucks Orders

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Starbucks has updated its mobile app to bring new voice-ordering features to its iOS app. Dubbed “My Starbucks Barista,” the new feature that will let customers order drinks with voice commands by speaking to a virtual AI barista. If they prefer, customers can also opt to put in their orders via texts. Moreover, Starbucks also launched this voice-ordering function as an Alexa Skill so that Amazon Echo owners can conveniently reorder their pre-set Frappuccinos simply by saying “Alexa, order my Starbucks.”

What Brands Need To Do
As an early-adopter of mobile ordering and payment technology, Starbucks have been quite advanced in embracing new mobile channels. In fact, the massive popularity of its mobile ordering feature has reportedly resulted in its baristas are having trouble keeping up with the huge amount of mobile orders during rush hours. And with the recent rise of voice-activated devices led by Amazon’s smart speaker Echo, it makes sense for Starbucks to embrace conversational interfaces so as to enhance its customer experience.

As tech giants such as Google and Amazon continue to make strong pushes for their conversational products, more and more mainstream consumers will soon become reachable via those emerging voice-based devices. Therefore, brands will need to explore opportunities in building advanced applications for these emerging platforms with highly engaging user experiences and conversational interactions.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building branded chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a chatbot experience supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data. If you’re interested in learning more about this or have a client opportunity, please reach out to our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Engadget

E-Retailer Phlur Uses Spotify Playlists And Curated Images To Sell Perfumes

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Phlur, an online-only perfume brand, came up with a brilliantly designed online shopping experience to introduce customers to its product lineup. Founded in 2015, the Austin-based startup aims to solve the obvious challenge in selling perfumes and colognes online – that you can’t smell it over the internet – with a novel sampling process.

Interested customers are encouraged to explore its elegantly crafted website, which presents an engaging digital experience where each product is explained with a unique audio-visual narrative supported by curated images and a mood-setting Spotify playlist. Then, customers are instructed to select two from the six Phlur products and have samples sent to their home for $10. If they like the sample and come back to purchase a full bottle, the $10 sample fee will be credited back to the customers.

What Brands Need To Do
In terms of business model, Phlur serves as another example of an ecommerce startup tapping into the “try-at-home,” direct-to-consumers trend established by the likes of e-retailer Warby Parker and Birchbox. What is more intriguing, however, is the way they build immersive audio-visual narratives that help introduce its products to prospective customers via a sensory experience. This should serve as an inspiration for other retail, ecommerce, and CPG brands that are aiming to innovate the shopping experience they offer, both online and offline. For example, brick-and-mortar retailers could use the trendy “store-within-a-store” concept, or perhaps tap into new technologies such as virtual reality like Taco Bell recently did, to build an interesting narrative to introduce customers to a new product.

If you’d like to learn more about how your brand can develop an updated retail strategy and implement digital-driven retail solutions to transform your in-store experience, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Racked

Header image is a promotional image from Phlur

JCPenney & Nordstrom Embrace In-store Pop-ups

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
In what is shaping up to be a hot trend in physical retail, pop-up store-within-a-store is gaining traction among some big-name retailers. Earlier this week, JCPenney announced its plan to let Nike set up shops in over 600 stores locations across the country. The in-store Nike shops will be prominently placed within the stores’ men’s department and feature an extensive assortment of apparel and accessories. This is the second national retail partnership JCPenney has arranged, following its decision to add cosmetics retailer Sephora to more than 500 locations in 2015.

Similarly, fashion retailer Nordstrom is embracing the “pop-in” concept with a three-part collaboration series with South Korean fashion and beauty brands. The series, titled KPOP-In@Nordstrom, kicked off in January with a partnership with Korean eyewear brand Gentle Monster, which has set up a makeup station area in select Nordstrom locations.  Previously, Nordstrom has partnered with fashion brands such as Topshop, Madewell, New Classics, Warby Parker, and Bow & Drape for similar pop-up initiatives.

What Retailers Need To Do
One obvious reason why such partnerships are gaining momentum is that, challenged by the fierce competition of the fast-growing online retailers, big-box retailers are starting to reconsider their retail strategy and becoming more open to invite outsider brands to deliver an in-store customer experience that hopefully will drive foot traffic.

Besides, brick-and-mortar retailers are also retooling their stores to become more experience-focused, and bringing in new brands to set up temporary shops is a cost-efficient way to refresh the in-store experience and keep shoppers interested. For example, the new Nike flagship store in downtown Manhattan is designed to let customers try on different products in common workout scenarios such as playing basketball or jogging. For retailers, these examples of experiential retail should serve as inspirations to figure out how to craft an engaging in-store experience that attracts shoppers.

How We Can Help
To that point, brick-and-mortar retailers can also benefit greatly by leveraging the digital technologies available to deliver a unique in-store experience. The Lab has extensive experience working with retail, beauty, and CPG clients to create and implement digitally-enhanced experiences for their stores. The recently-opened NYX Cosmetics store at Union Square is a proud showcase of our team’s work in crafting a digitally enhanced, innovative retail experience.

If you’d like to learn more about how your brand can develop an updated retail strategy and implement digital-driven retail solutions to transform your in-store experience, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Glossy & Total Retail