Shoppertainment and small box

Continuing my coverage of the Journal of Retailing conference 'Reimagining the physical store' at Babson college, I saw 5 more excellent presentations:

1) Enhancing efficiency and experience for customer and employee (Sabine Benoit?and friends)

2) dynamic pricing (Praveen Kopalle and friends)

3) Leveraging discovery, convenience, customization, community and/or shoppertainment (Els Bruegelmans and friends)

4) More than machines: how retail salespeople complement machines (Alec Pappas and friends)

5) Introducing small-box formats (Katrijn Gielens?and friends)

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When applying technology in retail, it is important to define the impact actor (eg customer or employee) and purpose (efficiency or adding value):

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Thus, Sabine Benoit offered the 2x2 framework with 4 quadrants: ?

An example for customers is the Near Street app in UK, showing customers where they could find the product in a nearby physical store. Bought by Google and released in the US as Pointy, it is available as a plugin.

Examples of employee enhancement include exo sceletons that makes it easier to lift stuff. The important strategic consideration is including the framework into customer journey management:

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Next, Praveen Kopalle presented our paper on whether and how to change prices based on customer segment, product configuration, location and timing.

Instead of the economists' terminology of 'price discrimination', dynamic pricing better covers the topic.

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Ellie Kyung asked about the long-term consequences of timing, such as training consumers to buy on deal. For instance, she leaves an expensive product in the online cart because knows the retailer will give her a 20% discount after a week - a topic I discuss with the Artea case. However, Praveen also pointed to the benefits of smart dynamic pricing and customer loyalty: 'I signed off my life to Delta, Amazon, and American Express. because I get treated better' For instance, when his original flight was hours delayed, Delta upgraded him to first class and he enjoyed the company of a famous Bollywood star and a shower (without the star :-))

Next, Els Breugelmans and Lina Altenburg leveraged many manager interviews to uncover a definition of the physical store and 5 dimensions why consumers want a physical store.

The integrative framework includes discovery, convenience, customization, community and/or shoppertainment. Great examples of convience and shoppertainment included:

My question related to the 'rosy' physical store definition leaving out any reference to retail profits. Consumers entering the physical store may not be aware that the layout is influenced by manufacturer trade allowances, category captains, and retailers guiding them to high-ticket items to compensate for eg loss leaders (why is milk in the back?). In contrast, online retail typically clearly distinguishes Sponsored from organic offerings. Do we need further research on the Dark Side of Physical Stores?

For best-dressed male presenter, my prize has to go to Alec Pappas, who demonstrated why in-person interactions with salespeople can not be replaced, but rather complemented by machines. The paper discusses the important changes to the work of a retail salesperson:

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This leads to the 7Cs of the customer experience in retail, and how machines + humans can improve them by focusing on their relative benefits.

For instance, Lowe's gives you VR headset but adds a salesperson to assist you in navigating the multiple kitchen options. I also learned the new term of 'word-of-machine' = algorithm recommending something to you:

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Summarizing this wonderful Journal of Retailing Special Issue, the editor herself discussed how the store of the future builds on experiential, social, curated, and frictionless commerce.

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In her empirical work, Katrijn Gielens examines to what extent, and in what conditions, do small-box stores affect the off-line and online performance of the big-box parent store?

Applying the best-ever model (Vector Autoregression) to Carrefour data in France, shows that the impact is small, but varies considerably based on local conditions:

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Working from home and between-city, non-motorized commutes lowered the benefit to the big box physical store. In contrast, between-city commutes increased the benefit to the online store. A lot more research is needed on the role of location and assortment (convenience), and the resulting re-assessment of store and real estate portfolios.

Overall, the conference demonstrated the retail result of digital transformation: consumers want it all, they want it now, at the lowest cost and best convenience:

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