At the show, Intel and Microsoft announced a new digital display device. You can read the news release here, but a video may be more helpful.
While I’ll admit this ranked higher because of it’s high-tech nature as opposed to measurable business benefit, it really is a good representation of the things that are starting to happen in digital signage. At some point digital signage, augmented reality and customer loyalty will start to come together. This represents a unique look at interactive technologies that will start to differentiate the experience for the customer in-store/restaurant.
Number 3 on the list is the IBM/Cisco Mobile Concierge. This was a concept demonstration of how the in-store shopping experience could be differentiated by leveraging the customers own mobile device.
One thing I learned was that Cisco wireless routers could determine the customers in-store location down to the meter. This can enable shelf or “micro-location” based services.  Using customer location and other data (e.g., loyalty, purchase history), the retailer can make offers available that are highly relevant at that moment and at that shelf.
Items scanned by the customer could provide additional information. There are plenty of services that do this today, but if the retailer is offering this through their own app, there is a greater ability to deliver desired messaging along with reviews and other information. If an item is not in stock, or the customer simply wants it delivered to their home, this can be seamlessly done from their phone.
Retailers could give customers the ability to find items in-store and, using the in-store location capability, virtually walk the customer to the product. Additionally, rather than finding the nearest customer service phone, the customer could simply press a button on their in-store app and get help immediately.
Finally, with current smartphone scanning technology (like RedLaser), there is no need for the price-checker. You can put it in the hands of the customer.
I’m sure there are any number of new services that will be added in the future. I think the key is for retailers to start thinking about how to leverage the customers own device to provide services which differentiate the in-store experience.
FaceCash is another take on the digital wallet. From their handout at the show,
“Use FaceCash and the Thinklink network to pay for goods and services at participating merchant stores – all with your iPhone/iPod Touch, Blackberry or Android phone. Everything about good old plastic, from rewards to statements, is even better with FaceCash. It’s easy, and it will save you time and money whether you are buying or selling. “
Here’s how it works (from their brochure at the show):
Deposit – the customer deposits money into their FaceCash account allowing them to use the funds anywhere FaceCash is accepted.
Present – Each FaceCash account is tied to a unique barcode that can be displayed on a smartphone or self-printed card to identify customers.
Scan – as soon as the merchant scans the barcode, the customers face appears on the merchant’s PC or Mac to prevent fraud.
Track – Funds are transferred instantly from customer to merchant. Both the customer and the merchant have complete records available on-line of everything bought and sold.
The team at NRF told me that unlike Square (which also provides a card swipe device for the iPhone ) FaceCash was meant to be like ‘paypal’ for retailers and leverages scanners instead of a proprietary device.
The mobile wallet is something of a holy grail being pursued by mammoth, global companies (e.g., Qualcomm ). It’s coming, but I don’t think companies like FaceCash will be able to get the critical mass required. So, while I don’t think FaceCash is the next big thing, it’s a good illustration of where we are heading.  For independent business owners FaceCash, Square, Mophie and perhaps Apple itself, all signal a fairly significant change in the cost of being able to accept credit cards. There will be impact to the incumbent hardware providers in this space as well as the large payment providers – to the benefit of retailers large and small.
Unfortunately, I think the FaceCash guys have a very tough road ahead up against better capitalized, larger competition, but the concept itself is a good example of where things are heading.
I’m not sure how I missed this one. Thanks to Alan Taetle for pointing it out to me.  I remember seeing their booth at NRF, but it just looked like a bunch of tchotchke’swith an attitude. Needless to say, I missed this for my top 10 list, but in retrospect this likely would have gotten a top spot.
We’ve been hearing about digital wallets for a long time now. At CES last week, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs announced Swagg.
According to the PDF I found at Pixelatedeek.com, “Swagg enables smart, efficient and rewarding transactions on the go. Swagg allows users to purchase, share and exchange gift cards, receive and redeem offers, view loyalty card points or balances, share content and more – straight from the convenience of a mobile device.”
According to an article by Mike Freeman of the Union tribune, Paul Jacobs (Qualcomm’s CEO) said the mobile-gift-card portion of the Swagg platform should be available before the next holiday season.
There are quite a number of new players in the mobile payments space – Square, Mophie, FaceCash and more traditional players like VivoTech and Verifone. Swagg is a big play, but Qualcomm is a great company (as is their Atlanta-based subsidiary driving this – Firethorn) with massive resources and global reach.
Swagg has the potential to significantly impact the customer experience as it relates to loyalty and gift cards making them both mobile and social. Definitely one to watch.
There’s not much on the website yet, but here’s a slick video for your enjoyment.
Recently, I did a post listing the top 10 things that caught my eye at NRF. Here is more detail on number 10– Ikan.
Ikan is provides a scanner and thin web device designed for the kitchen. The idea is to scan items as you discard them to create your list which can be sent to a grocer, or accessed for your own use on the web.
On the web site, you can see the current model, but at NRF they were showing the next version which runs Android, allowing more interactive web access. Here is a short video of the demo I received at NRF.
The benefits for customers would be an easier way to create and maintain your list based on usage. This in addition to the web and application access demonstrated in the video. For retailers and manufacturers, there would be benefit in knowing about usage patterns (privacy policy permitting of course) prior to purchase. The retailer could also provide relevant offers for alternative products based on timing, a map through the store to pick up your items, etc.
Ikan has a number of challenges. First, the device itself sells for $399. That’s expensive for a consumer device. While it can access various applications and websites, I’d rather have a laptop or netbook to do those things. If I really want the scanner, there are options from around $I79.
Unfortunately for ikan, there is a even better option which is to use applications that allow barcode reading from my smartphone.  For $0.99, I can buy something like GroceryIQ for my iPhone. The integrated scanning capability (using RedLaser from Occipital) works great and it’s integrated right into the application allowing me to create my list.
What does this mean for Ikan? Unfortunately, as much as I liked the Ikan guys, I personally wouldn’t shell out $399 for the integrated device when I can have a laptop for the same amount. Grocery IQ did a great job of scanning and creating my list.
What does this mean for grocery retailers? Apps like GroceryIQ are going to some degree control the customer and the customer experience if you let them.  It’s time for grocery retailers to create their own mobile apps that add value to the customer in a way that differentiates the brand.
Thank goodness AT&T was down all during NRF 2010. It allowed me to focus on walking the floor without the distraction of various business associates trying to get in touch with me.Â
While I can’t say I didn’t miss something, I was able to cover the entire floor. Here are the top 10 things I found of interest as it relates to technology which impacts the customer experience.
Very few of these will have a massive impact in the short run. Some may not even be at NRF next year. However, I believe they point towards the future of retail technology. I will follow up with a blog post on each outlining what I believe to be their benefits as well as challenges they will have in achieving mainstream retail adoption.
This is part two of a blog post regarding Mary Meeker’s 2009 Web 2.0 presentation and implications for retailers. For me, there are six key takeaways:
1. Your customers will increasingly carry massive computing power and, via the cloud, access to any information and services they want. You need to make them value yours vs. some third party price comparison site.  Build and deploy valuable applications that support the customer through the buying cycle from search, to store, to purchase.
2. Customers will expect Wi-Fi service at every retail location. I know there are issues. Provide it anyway.
3. Location, location, location. Not yours; your customers. Knowing the customers location will enable entirely new ways of communicating and fostering a relationship with them.  Be careful.  You need to offer value for this information.  If you use this information to spam them, the opportunity for conversation will be lost for a very long time.
4. Ready or not, devices like the iPhone are coming to the retail enterprise. People are using them in their daily lives and will see the value of using them at work. Security and other concerns need to be addressed, but departments and business units will push retail CIO’s to incorporate these tools sooner rather than later.
5. The information kiosk is dead. The customer is carrying the next generation kiosk with them. Make this part of your mobile commerce strategy.
6. As in Japan, mobile commerce will represent the fastest growing channel for multi-channel retailers. I know; we’ve been talking about mobile commerce for a decade. The iPhone changed everything. If you don’t have a mobile commerce strategy. You need to develop one – now.
I have found that very often retailers can lag other industries in terms of adoption of more operational technologies, but in terms of customer-facing technologies, which are increasingly powerful and prevalent, they will need to be leaders to differentiate and survive.
“[Augmented reality is] closer than you think. And, just as online changed consumers’ expectations from retailers, new user interfaces will easily have the same impact, forcefully thrusting retailers once again to the forefront of consumer technology adoption. Whether they’re ready or not.”
This is clearly going on via the web and even the Sunday paper with companies like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Increasingly, this technology will be used to differentiate the in-store experience in new, exciting, and innovative ways.
I was reading a blog post by John Sviokla on the Harvard Business website asking, “How Will Augmented Reality Affect Your Business?” Since I’d been spending some time thinking about the specific applications to retail, I thought I’d take a shot at answering that question for the retail space.
In this post, I will show some general examples, some retail specific ones, and then talk about what I think this means for retail.
For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, the basic idea behind augmented reality is to visually merge virtual objects with real objects. The most common example is the first-down marker you see on televised football games. To get the juices flowing, below are some examples which have fueled my imagination with regards to the topic.
Most of the above scenarios are enabled by a ‘tag’ – a visual symbol that starts the visualization. Here is a different example from a company called Layar which instead uses GPS and compass orientation to display virtual information over the live video feed from your camera.
I think the mobile aspect, adding the context of not only location but also the specific customer using the application, is significant. Using an AR shelf tag, one application might be to display different promotional offers to different customers based on their loyalty status or even time of day.
Thanks to Keith McGreggor, I had the good fortune recently to meet with Blair McIntyre, who heads up the Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech. Brilliant guy. I appreciate his taking time to meet with me. While he pointed out that there are still limitations (camera quality, iPhone API issues), I’m convinced that we are at the front of a convergence between the mobile web and the real world.
The retail business against the current economic backdrop is about value, differentiation and growth by seizing market share. Augmented reality technology has the potential to transform the customer experience in fundamental ways that separate the winners from the losers. I also believe that while AR will be used first in marketing and customer facing applications, there are significant operational applications as well.
We are just starting up the hype curve now and it will be several years before we see the trough of despair and mainstream adoption, but depending in the overall value proposition of the retailer, AR technologies have the potential to change the game.
Thank goodness AT&T was down all during NRF 2010. It allowed me to focus on walking the floor without the distraction of various business associates trying to get in touch with me. 
This is part two of a 
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