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Two stories caught my eye this week which were about large retailers looking at consumer applications of new technology.
The pace of technological innovation shows no sign of slowing, but I’m always interested in the ‘last yard’ where companies look for meaningful and mainstream applications of these technologies into the everyday lives of their customers.
Walmart has plans for integrating new technology into the shopping experience: ‘Walmart tries new tech with eye on consumers’. In essence, Walmart are aiming to make their outlets better places to shop by exploring the integration of these technologies:
What interests me is that Walmart seem to realise that the difficult part is not implementing the technology but “making the customer experience something really worthwhile”. And this can only come from putting some of these technologies into the field.
In the same week Tesco announced the launch of its augmented reality programme, which will allow customers to view 3D images of more than 40 products from the electronics and entertainment sections both in-store or online.
Tesco hopes the use of augmented reality will reduce the number of returns, as people can get an idea of the size and physical attributes of the product before ordering online.
As econsultancy reported, “Tesco is pushing hard in terms of integrating technology into the shopping experience, using semantic tagging within its product searches online and trialling wifi in some of its stores”.
None of the technologies mentioned above are brand new. But when they were – and written up enthusiastically in Wired magazine and Techcrunch – the customer use-cases were theoretical; little more than imaginative leaps made by the technologists. In many ways the real-world work of testing and tuning applications of technology in customer contexts is the harder and more noble work.
As Venky Harinarayan, Walmart’s SVP of global e-commerce, says: “These are not technology problems, they are customer experience problems.”
I’d be interested in hearing about any other retail organisations doing the ‘hard yard’ of trialling new technology into the customer experience. Please leave a comment if you’ve got a story or link to share.
Further reading
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I worked in publishing for six years before discovering the world of ideation and product development as Innovation Consultant at Norwich Union. I got hooked on finding o...
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