Innovation relies on security and trust

When you take a look back at the Digital Retail Innovations Top 50 and the Digital Leisure & Hospitality Top 20 reports over the past few years it could be argued that few types of innovation genuinely have a massive impact on their respective industries. It is the case that there are lots of similarities…

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Empowering employees can make all the difference

It’s pretty much a fact that we all like independent stores. I’m talking about the sort of places that offer a much richer, personal service than is typically delivered by the larger retailers. Too often the latter have disengaged employees who have little power to make decisions and this combination invariably leads to a disappointing…

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Voice threatens foundations of physical stores

Apple recently launched its HomePod smart speaker with much of its marketing effort based around the quality of the unit’s aural output but as we all know it is really all about its voice-driven capabilities. Like Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa the new Apple product is firmly pitched into the field of engagement by voice.…

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Empower employees to deliver exemplary experiences

Retail is gradually moving towards being about delivering a great customer experience above all else. This view was recently expounded by Debenhams’ chairman Sir Ian Cheshire at the World Retail Congress in Dubai when he suggested the role of the retailer was no longer about selling goods but was instead about selling an experience. My…

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Time to embrace the robots through education

Robotics has certainly moved up the agenda of late as the potential for such technology to push many people out of unskilled jobs becomes more apparent as developers advance the capabilities of these types of solutions. But since I became a governor at my children’s school I’ve begun to regard the debate around how exactly…

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Retailers can learn from the budget airlines

Something rather surprising happened to me recently. I had a pleasant experience when buying some flight tickets from one of the major budget airlines.   Whereas in the past navigating the websites of budget airlines sites was a long winded experience, the processes have been streamlined and ancillary products are integrated into the booking flow…

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Finding the price / customer service sweet spot

Before meal solutions box scheme HelloFresh unexpectedly knocked on my door earlier this year I had no intention of subscribing to any such product. But the impressive pitch delivered by the young, on-brand, funky couple of people selling the product door-to-door led to me signing up with little resistance. Their slick, knowledgeable delivery hooked me…

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Learnings from the world’s best B&B

Who would have believed that the world’s best B&B is a modestly proportioned place in the small village of Masham in North Yorkshire. But it’s true and Millgate Bed & Breakfast sits proudly atop the pile. When reading the Times newspaper recently I came across an article about the guest house that was set up…

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Using technology to inflate service levels in-store

When visiting Yorkshire on Good Friday I discovered a puncture on my car and visited an ATS garage to have it checked out. They initially reckoned it was easy to sort but then realised it was a more serious problem and required me ringing the VW specialist garage. The guys in the garage said they…

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Digital strategies are not one-size-fits-all

While on a recent business trip to Ireland I heard an interesting comment from the leader of a major retailer who was seriously questioning the value of investing heavily in an online platform and instead just keeping the key focus on the stores portfolio and utilising Google. The theory being that shoppers will increasingly go…

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Thinking of opening an innovation lab?

To accompany a recent interview with Marc Bolland, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, the photos showed him in the company’s innovation hub next to their HQ in London’s Paddington. It certainly ticked all the boxes for what you would expect if this space was the home of a start-up technology company located just a…

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Hackers could derail retailers’ one-click world

Starbucks’ pay-ahead app is a tremendous innovation that is not only a big hit with customers of the coffee chain but it also featured in second position in the Top 50 table in the recently published Retail Insider Digital Retail Innovations 2015 report (sponsored by Webloyalty). It’s one of a number of innovations in this…

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Stores no longer a millstone, they’re the future

On my travels recently to a conference in The Netherlands the founder and CEO of a major electrical retailer BAS Group suggested merchants without physical stores do not have a future. The inference being that the pure-plays out there need to get themselves a bricks and mortar presence – and quickly. If he is right…

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We are not all price-driven promotion addicts

Looking back on Black Friday one of the conclusions to be drawn would be that the UK shopper has become deal obsessed and that retail is now just about promotions and the cheapest prices. But let’s step back and consider what happened over the whole of the Christmas period. The reality is that Black Friday…

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The future of retail is technology and it is here now

Do you think about technology? Probably not I suspect because it is all around us and so ingrained in our everyday lives that it has drifted into the background and we are not conscious of it per se. In its various forms – from smart-Phones and tablets to SAT NAVs – it is ubiquitous. Consider…

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Will connected devices be a dream or nightmare for retailers?

Carphone Warehouse and Dixons Retail are selling their recently announced merger plans to City investors as a way to tap into the connected devices story. They reckon the link-up will ensure the combined entity is in prime position to benefit from the expected enormous growth of the ‘internet-of-things’ whereby household items and wearable technologies are…

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Physical stores’ future could look bright

A couple of weeks ago it suddenly dawned on me that I needed to change the bulbs in my car’s headlights ahead of an evening trip. I would have bought them online and fitted them myself but I was unsure of the exact bulb type. That’s when I remembered the Halfords store nearby Stevenage and…

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Amazon anticipatory shipping not as pie-in-the-sky as drones

Last month it was drones delivering goods to customers’ doors and this month it is Amazon announcing its plan to launch ‘anticipatory shipping’ whereby it uses big data to pack customers’ orders before they have even ordered them! The US giant certainly knows how to generate miles of column inches but scratch below the surface…

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