Is digital-first retail missing the point?

Recently, I spent a few days in London with my daughter for half term and whilst there we decided to find an Amazon Fresh store to see what all the fuss was about. Amazon Fresh stores, in case you don’t know, are Amazon’s bricks-and-mortar answer to frictionless shopping. No checkouts, no queues, just pick up what you need and walk out. Your shop is automatically charged to your Amazon account.

Sounds intriguing so we thought we’d give it a try.

The first hurdle for us was just through the doorway, we were faced with barriers and had no clue what to do. No graphics to help us so we asked the friendly security guy. He showed me in 10 seconds to open my Amazon app, click on the fresh tab, scan in the QR code at the barrier, help myself to a free paper bag and just pick up what I want then leave (back through the barrier) and my account would be debited.

Entry was easy, we wandered around for a while trying to figure out how we could get fresh meat, bread, doughnuts and cheese back from London before opting for chocolate, fruit, and a few drinks. We puzzled over bar codes and if we should be scanning something, in the end deciding to walk out puzzling over what had just happened.

If I worked in central London and needed to pick up a few groceries or a meal deal lunch, I think this would be a good option. I hate supermarket shopping but my issue isn’t just with the tills, it’s the general monotony of buying food in a relentless journey up and down aisles. Amazon Fresh doesn’t solve this. It removes queuing at the tills or even worse, dealing with the self-serve tills that almost never function correctly. But I still need to wander up and down aisles and I still have to face the challenge of finding the product I am looking for.

In the end I decided I’m not the target audience. My fourteen year old apparently isn’t either; she too found the novelty wore off after five minutes of searching for grapes.

For me, Amazon Fresh demonstrates perfectly the value in the human touch. The value in service, in knowing where your produce is grown, reared or made. If I’m going in to a physical store, rather than ordering online, I want more than aisles, I want an experience that connects me to that brand, store, owner.

Should the supermarkets be concerned? Yes I think so. As they have stripped away the service element of their shopping experience, the technology in supermarkets is sadly lacking. Amazon proves technology can be seamless, it can work without human intervention (the poor store staff standing at supermarkets, helping customers override the self-serve tills that are seemingly incapable of recognising when a product has been moved in the bagging area).

Beyond supermarkets

M&S have now jumped on the technology bandwagon with their Smart app. As part of their plan to ‘transform to be a digital-first business’ they are looking to push more shoppers to use their Sparks app, Enabling customers to pick, scan and bag products whilst moving around the store, avoiding till queues and enjoying Sparks rewards in the process

Launched with the ‘Yes You Can’ ad campaign, it’s the first step of moving their customers to a self-serve model.

Don’t get me wrong, technology has it’s place. M&S are improving stock availability, efficiencies and reducing food waste through the use of AI technology, in partnership with Rexel. That makes absolute sense. But if they think their customer experience will be improved by customers self-serving using their smart phones, I’m not convinced. Queues haven’t been the problem for me in M&S, but the blandness of their stores, the poor customer service and appalling changing rooms are. Their food hall stocks excellent quality produce but moving around them reminds me of being at the airport; chaotic, stressful and disorganised. Carrying my smartphone round and scanning my own shopping isn’t going to improve any of that.

What is the problem they’re solving for customers?

I think putting the customer at the centre of designing tech solutions, whilst considering the context of the environment they are in, is essential. Technology alone can’t deliver a personal experience. There are times and places where technology provides an ideal solution and others when it gets in the way. If retailers are going to shift to 'digital-first’, perhaps they should start by answering what do we need to improve for customers, where can technology help with that and where is a human touch required?

I would hate to see small, local retailers shift to a self-serve model. After all, in the last few years, we’ve rediscovered the benefits of shopping local, connecting with our local community and knowing where our produce comes from. Having a relationship with a local shop owner elevates the experience of shopping, being another task to do, to an opportunity to connect with our community.

Amazon Fresh serves a customer who is in ‘last-minute’ mode. Someone who needs to pick something up quickly. Technology enabling that to happen more easily matches the customer need. For smartphone shopping to work in M&S stores, I suspect they will need to work on store environments and ensure they don’t alienate customers who don’t want to shop with a phone in their hand.

For me, I’ll continue using digital when I just want to get the shop done and stick to buying from the local shops I know and love, where I get a sense of helping a small business whilst helping our local high street thrive.

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