Social Retail

Consumer behavior is something that has interested me for some time, especially how we as consumers have changed and adapted to the new ways of interacting with retail services and products.

Let’s take a second to remind ourselves how a retail experience used to be:
The customer would walk into the store up to the counter and ask the shop keeper for the goods, they in turn would go get the goods and return to the counter.

This interaction would lead to conversation between the shop keeper and the customer as the customers baskets would slowly fill up, cross selling could happen.

We are missing this personal / social interaction from a lot of retail experiences these days, and this is the gap that some application developers have seen.

Sites such as ‘Go try it on’ and ‘Honestly Now’ are about to offer the social interaction of old, but with a twist, your not asking the shop keeper, your asking your social network of ‘Friends’ for honest opinions on goods pre or post purchases such as a dress for that Saturday night date or the iPhone or HTC.. you get the point.

Are these social shopping / opinion sites good. I believe they are. Will they take off and be successful, only time will tell, but I am not convinced. I think we have been conditioned to shop in a no-social way, via the Internet and mobile.

I see a future where I can see a pair of trainers / sneakers on a guy walking down the street, I take a picture of them, press order and they are with me by the time I get home.

Or I order a bottle of wine at lunch, it’s lovely so I want it at home, I scan in the barcode with my mobile and hey presto… actually hang on….
Tesco have already started with their scanner application, which reads the barcode of a product and adds it to your shopping basket.

I am not saying high street shops will disappear, I am saying that we will see quicker ways to make purchases, via mobile wallets, RFID, QRCodes, barcodes, NFC etc. so the social interaction will be come less.
We as the consumer will be able to make the choices about how shop, be it in-store or while I walk to work.

Do you think in-store will suffer?

I wonder where he did get those trainers / sneakers…

Ohh and Happy Valentines Day!

References:
www.honestlynow.com
www.gotryiton.com
www.google.com/mobile/goggles/

About the Author:
Name: Darren Richardson
Bio:
Exec Creative Technologist, Author, Inventor, Founder, Innovator, Leader, Mentor with 15+ years Experience, passion for creative and geekness.
Location: Floating