Contextual Retail

As a Silicon Valley web and software leader transplanted in recent years into the world of retail and cpg, I am continually amazed to see the various opportunities that present in this dynamic and data-rich environment. 

I have long supported the notion and first hand observation that big internet and big software (as industries) has worked through innovation cultures to evolve and solve a lot of issues that big retail has yet to overcome. 

Much progress has been made in retail in recent years with the influx of consumer-enabling offerings, like our Starbucks loyalty and in-store payment capabilities, mobile apps, location-based services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook places, merchant opportunities opening up with GroupOn and Living Social and Google Offers. It is less about what retailers have done and more about what is being done to/with them. This is now changing as retailers start to lead the way in these offerings.

Also noteworthy are the new emerging offerings in social commerce, such as Walmart’s recent announcement of their social commerce initiatives, which will aspire to tailor your retail experience with the analytics surrounding your social graph motivations. 

What would a virtual end-base filled with products relevant to you, inspired from your Facebook and Twitter friends and discussions, delivered in a daily-deal format look like? Just to give you a sense of the power here. 

Despite all of these recent advancements in retail from mobility, payments to group buying, location based and social-aware commerce, we are really only seeing the beginning of what I have called “Contextual Retailing”, which is simply defined as merchants and retailers on an opt-in and secure fashion broadly knowing who you are, what you like, what is important to you how you want to be engaged with, your need for value, quality and individualized texture to in-store offerings important to you. When you layer in gamification, loyalty and social currency you really start to unlock and completely transform the modern retail experience. Retailing in essence, becomes one to one engagement vs one (merchant) to many (customers).

Differentiation in the future of retail will come as much from product and quality offerings as it will from personalization and relevance. This again, is contextual retail manifest.  These disparate activities now: payment, group-buying, mobile, location-based, loyalty, currency and social will start to converge and they will converge in a big-way that benefits the merchant and the customer alike.

This is just a few of the high-level dimensions that can be fitted into a contextual-retail experience.  There are indeed hundreds that can and are being explored. 

As retailers move in various ways into a “contextual retail” enabled environments, the rigid and anonymous interaction you have with many merchant and retailers today evolves…and it evolves significantly in new a relevant ways to the consumers. Surprise and delight experiences become the new normal of retail.

Get ready for the exciting era of a smarter and consumer friendly retail experience. It is upon us. 

Stephen Gillett