Digital Retail Innovations 2014 report launched
Brought to you by Retail Insider and Webloyalty
Google Glass grabbed the top spot in the first annual ‘Retail Insider Digital Retail Innovations’ report but it is logistics solutions and mobile payments that feature most prominently as innovations predicted to have the greatest impact on the retail industry.
The top 10 of the report includes DPD ‘Follow My Parcel’, InPost London Underground Lockers and the Westfield Collect+ collaboration that highlight the most innovative logistics solutions while the Starbucks pre-ordering app and PayPal face recognition are listed as the top examples of payment-related innovations in the country.
The report, sponsored by Webloyalty, involved canvassing opinion from specialists across the retail sector to bring together a list of 45 digitally-driven innovations that represent the best examples to be found in the UK.
The list was then scored by an Advisory Panel of respected individuals comprising retailers, consultants, and technology specialists including Peter Williams, chairman of Boohoo.com, John Bovilll, IT & e-commerce director at Monsoon/Accessorize, Scott Weavers-Wright, founder of Haatch and Martin Newman, CEO of Practicology.
They ranked the innovations based on four important criteria: how innovative, potential influence across the sector, how potentially commercial, and the potential benefit to customers.
Google Glass easily outscored second-placed DPD ‘Follow My Parcel’ in the overall table although the latter topped the tables in three of the four individual criteria. Google Glass made its mark most prominently in the ‘how innovative’ criteria where it scored strongly.
Other innovations to perform well were McDonald’s Digital stores – that represent an ongoing programme of new digital technologies introduced into a small number of trial outlets in the UK – as well as the IKEA augmented reality app and the Greggs Rewards app developed by Eagle Eye.
The report covers a broad spread of innovations with examples impacting both the back-end of retailers businesses and the front-end customer experience. The former camp includes a number of data-based innovations such as Asos/editd buyer intelligence and Euclid Zero footfall monitoring.
The latter has many examples with B&Q ‘Spaces’ virtual room designing, Good Food Talks and the Courtney Lennon Frockadvisor app among them. The Good Food Talks app scored particularly strongly in the ‘potential benefit to customers’ criteria, finishing in second place behind DPD ‘Follow My Parcel’.