A new study by Retail Forward entitled “Retail Innovation: Ten Opportunities for 2010” is an interesting read covering the trends and potential opportunities for the retail sector. The report focuses on the 10 retail innovations that go beyond technology and operating strategies, and instead looks at new ways for providing consumer benefits. The report does a very good job in explaining the concepts especially its use of real-life illustrations of the concepts presented.
According to the report, here are the 10 retail innovation opportunities to watch out for:
- Catch a Wave – the need to respond to demographic, societal, economic and technological trends (e.g. responding to the retail needs of the older people and ethnic customer)
- Solve My Problem – if you understand why a customer is buying your product, then you can effectively do cross-selling, allowing to better provide a more complete solution to the buyer
- Do It for Me – instead of the do-it-yourself consumers, you now see a growing segment of customers who want retailers to do it for them (e.g. home improvement assembly by Lowe’s)
- Help Me Choose – given the vast information available and the surge of new products and brands, customers are looking to retailers to help them choose the right products for them
- Come to Me – before, customers would drive to go to a retailer; now they want retailers to come to them bringing with it new opportunities for retailers to reach out to the customers (e.g. mobile retailing)
- Enhance the Experience – growing focus on customer experience shifts the retailer’s thinking from what moves a product to what moves a customer
- Make it Easy – focus on ease of use to save consumers time and effort
- Do It My Way – increased focus on individualism along with personalization and customization
- Help Me Connect – retailers can look at customer’s heightened need for social networking as an opportunity for their businesses
- Speed it Up – time is scarce and retailers would do well to respond to customers’ need for the product fast.
You can read the full report here
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