RPW 8-18-09

Retail Paradox Weekly

Retail News Analysis by RSR Research

August 18, 2009

Mobility: With Standards Coming, Can Adoption Be Far Behind?

By Brian Kilcourse, Managing Partner
8/18/2009

In RSR’s February 2009 report, Cross-Channel Retailing for the Anytime Anywhere Consumer, we commented on the state of adoption of the mobile commerce channel: “Consumer adoption of new technologies is accelerating... Mobile Commerce is a known future requirement – plan for it now.” The risk for retailers who ignore the mobility challenge is that when it comes to any technology-enabled consumer capability, the incubation period may be very slow, but then consumer adoption is often dramatic and very rapid. Those retailers that are overly cautious can find themselves lagging far behind before they even hear the starting gun.

Lack of standards can be a big inhibitor, even for those retailers that seek to... More

The Engaged Customer-centric Retailer and the Need for Community

By Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partner
8/18/2009

Last week we introduced a new model for successful retailing. We called it The Engaged Customer-centric Retailer (TECCR). We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on this, with some readers (particularly technology firms) ready to embrace it as-is, post it on their web sites and start referencing it. Thanks for that! We also got one bit of feedback that’s really important… and so, as we suspected, the model will evolve. Specifically, the best retailers will not just wait for customers to contact them: they will start the conversation. Hence, we need to change the bubble originally titled “Social Media Feedback” to something else – probably “Social Media Engagement” or something like that. As we said, this is an evolving model. Stay tuned as we continue to tweak, and please continue to send thoughts and ideas.

In the meanwhile... More

Who Should Be Accountable for In-Store Execution?

By Nikki Baird, in partnership with RetailWire

8/18/2009

RSR recently released a research report on in-store marketing. A bit of a narrow topic for us, but actually broader than the topic I was shooting for, which was in-store digital signage. By couching the research in broader terms, we were able to view digital signage in the context of all at-the-shelf programs that retailers and brands are trying to stuff into stores.

One of the more controversial findings from the research was a point on in-store execution... More

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