Canadian Retailer - Summer 2013 - 19

TRENDS TO wATCh
Pressure from the south
as large u.s. competition enters the canadian
market, bringing with them their full complement
of mobile and e-commerce capabilities, canadian
retailers will not be afforded the option of offering anything
but a seamless omnichannel experience for the customer.
and if they don’t, according to lee, “they won’t even make
it into the customer’s consideration set.”
this, however, is a great thing, asserts lee, offering incentive and opportunity.
“there’s so much potential for canadian retailers to be
where their customers want them to be. the canadian
market is abound with e-commerce opportunities. it’s up
to retailers in this country to raise the bar on the customer
experience and develop all kinds of different, interesting
and creative ways to interact with them.”
Real estate burden
according to lee, retailers are going to start to
find that their real estate costs are becoming too
high. forcing them to maximize their locations by
optimizing the customer experience, off and online.
“because the consumer's pre-shopping behaviour has
changed so much and they’re using mobile and e-commerce, the role of the store begins to change. retailers are
finding that traffic is down, but conversion is up. people are
still coming to the store, but they’re just better educated
and looking for a different experience. the best retailers
are being creative to provide that experience through education, technology and know-how.”
Urban convenience
as some retailers listen to their customers, they’re
realizing that they are more time starved than
they’ve ever been before and are burdened with
more responsibilities than ever. but…they still want to shop.
some retailers are catering their offering and services to
meet these needs.
“house of fraser in the u.k. is so impressive,” says lee.
“they really understand how to serve the consumer and the
kind of consumer that they’re serving. they have 100,000
square-foot, big, beautiful department stores, but they’ve
also begun to create urban formats—stores where the
consumer walks in, touches the product, feels the prod-

uct, and tries the product on, but they can only order the
product in the store for delivery. that’s pretty astounding.
they’ve listened to their customer and discovered that
in these urban environments, people don’t want to carry
these items home. combining this with the ever-increasing
importance of shipping, the format can be a success if
executed properly.”
gamification
one of the most interesting, and perhaps penetrating, trends that’s on the mobile horizon is the concept
of gamification. it comes from internet gaming which,
for better or for worse, has taught retail something—that
people are more engaged when they’re gaming.
“retailers around the world are trying to figure out how to
integrate gamification into their customer experience, to
not only engage their consumer but keep them addicted to
their site, experience and their stores,” says lee. “You can
look at your loyalty programs or your in-store offering or
online offerings and ask, ‘how do we create that dopamine
effect which gaming creates?’”
if you look at the market, some retailers are already figuring
this out, using online scrabble as a way in which to collect
customer information on facebook. in the u.k. some of
the grocery companies are looking at ways to use bingo to
keep customers engaged on their site and encourage them
to buy their groceries online. and american Girl has gamified its dolls. When a child receives an american Girls doll
they can login online and create an avatar within a virtual
world where they solve problems and play games. this reduces returns, and keeps the child coming back to the site
over and over again.
Personalization
retail today is all about engagement. and that,
warns lee, doesn’t mean communicating the
same way with all of your customers.
“personalization is so key today. Gone are the days when
you could try to treat everyone the same. omnichannel’s all
about that personalized experience—the customer shops
their way, and they buy their way. the retailer should let the
customer know, through marketing and their operations, that
any way they want to interact with them is fine, because they
have an omnichannel view of the customer. that’s where the
customer’s going. it’s what the customer expects.”

started to change their skus slightly for different features and
functionality. This way consumers can’t price compare. The strategy of the unique product is so key to a retail strategy today.”
Though, the crucial moments in a customer’s pre-shopping
and shopping experience today are not limited to price and
feature comparisons in-store. Lee says that an intimate understanding of your customer’s path to purchase is another critical
element to capturing their attention, earning their spend and
gaining their loyalty.
“If you really understand the path to purchase and the key moments of truth in the experience you can ensure that you get in
front of your competitors during the consideration step as the
consumer pre-shops,” explains Lee. “If you can map out and analyze a customer’s behaviour, and understand the different steps—
going on social media, checking online, asking friends—you’ll
have an edge over other retailers in that you’ll be positioned to

influence the customer early on in the process.”
Despite where your organization is in the ecommerce journey, Lee says that as long as retailers integrate an omnichannel view of their
customer, providing them with options of convenience, differentiation, experience and multiple points of interaction, they can rest assured
that they're heading in the right direction.
“The Canadian market is absolutely ready
for an e-commerce boom,” she says. “Canadian
retailers are on the precipice of the biggest
game-changer this industry has ever seen. It’s
going to be exciting to see more and more organizations in the country become leaders in
the field, influencing the future of retail and
tomorrow’s customer”.

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Canadian Retailer - Summer 2013

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