What I’m calling augmented retailing is a step change in technology in retailing from efficiency to effectiveness.
Retailing efficiency
Before we talk about augmented retailing, let’s go through efficiency which has been the focus for a long time. Depending on the way you want to look at this, you could look back centuries to the foundation of a technology multiplier: children.
Family retail businesses had family members working in their business from once they could understand and act on instructions. I have friends that started working in the family restaurant from 6-years old. I started working on the family farm (ineffectively) from a similar age.
Weighing scales were starting to become standardised by the middle-ages and giving short measures could see you punished.
The next innovation were payment related, such as currency and credit.
At the end of the 19th century thanks to industrialisation you started to see the origins of supermarkets as we now think about them. Sears Roebuck was the exemplar for mail order business, from which we now have Amazon and the countless e-tailers out there. Around about the same time the cash register was invented, which allowed cashiers to deal with more customers in a given amount of time. Cash registers then improved over the next century.
At the end of the 20th century we start to see e-tailing emerge. Accelerating mail order from being a niche to becoming a mainstream form of retail. Around the same time, you also saw cashier-less tills come in and other techniques to make shopping even more self-service.
Augmented retailing
Augmented retailing isn’t for the primary benefit of the retailer; but the customer. That’s more radical than it sounds as I write this down.
Look at other trends that marked change in retail and its about inconvenience to ‘create’ demand:
- Apple retail product launches.
- Abercrombe and Fitch / Hollister’s ‘club style’ door queues.
- Drop culture.
- Raffles to win the right to buy a product.
I have started to see innovations that are focused on the effectiveness of the consumer experience, rather than being orientated around retailing efficiency.
Mylowe virtual advisor
Lowe’s is a DIY superstore, rather similar to B&Q, Homebase or Toolstation in the UK. Like B&Q, Lowe’s has on-site experts to advise customers and help them select parts for projects.
Mylowe helps the experts by augmenting their expertise, providing a faster, better experience for Lowe’s customers.
A-eye
Indian snack manufacturer Britannia worked with their agency VML India to aid blind consumers to shop independently. The app christened A-eye uses Google’s Vertex AI to recognise products on shelves and provide information about the product (quantity, ingredients, instructions etc.). Think about the personal confidence that this would bring to the user in their everyday life.
Albert Heijn provides cooking tips
Dutch supermarket brand Albert Heijn uses generative AI to help consumers by answering cooking questions. `Mijn AH assistent’ helps customers in their food shopping for food ingredients.
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