Technologically savvy consumers are leaving B.C.’s bricks-and-mortar retailers in the dust when it comes to shopping innovation.
“I see coming, in the future, custom environments created on [a mobile] handset,” said Michael LeBlanc, senior vice-president, marketing and digital retail, with the Retail Council of Canada in Toronto. “The customer will have opted in for an experience, and that experience will be customized both to the individual and to the interaction they have in the store.”
The bold prediction is based on what LeBlanc has seen at such U.S. luxury apparel retailers as Rebecca Minkoff, which has yet to arrive in Canada but points the way to the future.
Mirrors in the store are effectively giant screens, which allow shoppers to request clothing items and accessories to match what they’re trying on. The mirror customizes views to the consumer’s preferences, exchanging information with radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips in clothing tags to show them in different lighting – say, a club environment, a restaurant or under natural light.
Other innovations include wearable technology that communicates with in-store RFIDs and facial-recognition software.
But if such technology is the future, it has yet to come to B.C., where retailers have been slow to adopt new technologies.
“Still thinking about, still working on it,” said LeBlanc, drawing a blank when asked to name B.C. retailers who have embraced the latest technology.
Indeed, Rick Kohn, who leads the retail practice in the Vancouver office of international accounting firm Deloitte, said B.C. retailers have largely limited their use of technology to back-end functions and smoothing the transaction process.
Preliminary interviews for the firm’s annual report on the sector for the Retail Council of Canada – which focuses this year on technology – underscore the cautious approach retailers take when it comes to technological change.
“Many of them are at that earlier stage where they’re determining where they’re going to place their bets, and they’re going to do that by seeing and learning what the experiences are,” Kohn said. “They’re interested in seeing what’s going to work and what’s not going to work.”
The move to mobile devices four years ago highlights retailers’ response to technology for Kohn. Progressive retailers gave staff an iPad to engage directly with customers, develop mailing lists that would facilitate an ongoing connection and integrate online functions with the in-store experience.
However, not all who embraced the technology accepted it. Others saw how it worked for others and continued to shy from it.
Retailers are still delaying, Kohn said, even as consumers become nimbler in seizing the opportunities mobile offers.
What’s really worked for retailers, in Kohn’s view, are things that make the notoriously tough retail business easier and more cost-effective, such as inventory management tools.
Mountain Equipment Co-op, for example, is among the retailers that allow consumers to buy a product not available at the local store and have it shipped to their home or favourite retail location.
Similarly, there is a move toward swipe-and-pay services and phone-based accounts that allow taxi users to reserve taxis and be billed according to the change in the phone’s GPS co-ordinates.
But Kohn said retailers need to be willing to innovate – something a fickle retail environment hasn’t necessarily encouraged.
“They’ve got to have a culture of innovation,” he said. “Retailing is just a hard business, and there’s a lot of detail associated with it, and when you need to make significant changes in terms of your approach, it requires an adaptability.” •
