via bloomberg.com

EBay Adds Tool to Let Shoppers Model 3-D Glasses, Expanding in E-Commerce

EBay Inc., the largest online retail marketplace, is introducing a technology that lets people browse and try on sunglasses using an Apple Inc. iPhone, as it seeks to mimic the real-world shopping experience.

The so-called augmented-reality feature is part of EBay’s fashion application, Steve Yankovich, vice president of the company’s mobile unit, said in an interview last week. The app will be available in December, he said.

EBay is using handset-friendly tools to benefit from rising demand for mobile commerce, an area of retailing where Colin Gillis, an analyst at New York-based BGC Partners LP, says it established an early lead. The company has said its apps will generate as much as $2 billion in volume this year. Worldwide, there will be about 150 million to 200 million mobile augmented -reality users by 2012, from about 600,000 last year, according to Perey Research & Consulting in Montreux, Switzerland.

“Within a year or two, I would be shocked if we didn’t see it everywhere,” said Norman Winarsky, a vice president at Menlo Park, California-based SRI International, a technology incubator known for developing the computer mouse. The future of mobile shopping will allow consumers to experience and try anything they want, Winarsky said. “You can put your finger in front of the camera and a diamond ring will appear,” he said.

Ikea introduced an app on the iPhone earlier this year that lets people see how the retailer’s furniture would fit in their homes. Companies such as Lego A/S, Europe’s biggest toymaker, have store kiosks through which shoppers may hold up a box and see what the Legos will look like assembled.

As technological hurdles fall and companies start synchronizing their online and mobile business strategies, more retailers may introduce augmented reality-style apps, said Rob Gonda, global lead of creative technology at SapientNitro, a London-based marketing firm.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE.

La riduzione del potere d’acquisto delle famiglie è un dato di fatto che i player dell’industria e della distribuzione devono affrontare quotidianamente. La recente crisi economica ha determinato un calo nel rapporto di fiducia fra cliente, marca e insegna ed un cambiamento dei comportamenti d’acquisto.

Recuperare la fiducia, significa gettare le basi per rilanciare piani di sviluppo e competitività, in un’ottica di efficienza e di creazione del valore su tutta la filiera.

La quarta edizione del Consumer & Retail summit analizzerà questi scenari insieme ai protagonisti del settore, che attraverso nuove strategie di partnership si stanno impegnando sui temi della negoziazione, sostenibilità, innovazione.

PROGRAMMA

We find this reading very interesting now, in the middle of 2010, when the big crisis and its related downs and fails looks mostly the past (?).

A quote from “Strength by luxury goods shoppers in Asia and online bring glimmers of hope to beleaguered industry, says Bain & Company in release of annual worldwide market study“, Bain & Company press release 10/21/09.

Bain concluded the presentation with its prediction of 10 global luxury trends for the coming decade starting in 2010:

1. Younger consumers and new groups such as working women will become the dominant segments as baby boomers age and retire
2. Aspiration will evolve into new relationships with brands as consumers look to fill different emotional needs with their luxury purchasing
3. Retail networks and product offerings will see greater and greater customization by country and even by city-one size fits all has stopped working
4. Growth in China, South Asia and Central Asia may cause Asia to overtake Europe and the Americas as the largest global luxury market region
5. Asia’s diversity (more than 15 countries, more than 300 cities, and more than 50 million consumers) will stretch luxury brands’ marketing and supply chain capabilities
6. Market pressures in a turbulent recovery will drive a second wave of luxury consolidation
7. New luxury players will emerge as tastes and consumers change, including brands based in emerging market companies
8. The luxury shopping experience will transform as direct-owned stores, department stores and outlets look for ways to draw in the decade’s new luxury shoppers
9. Online retail is still in its infancy, but quickly becoming more than a niche
10. Retailers will treat new shoppers as “in play,” and offer competitive products to those produced by typical luxury brand.

Did it work, the prediction by Bain of the last October? You judge!

E-Commerce Growth Slows, But Still Out-Paces Retail

via blogs.wsj.com

Shopping continues to shift to the Web, but the years of torrid growth are coming to an end.

In 2009, e-commerce in the U.S. managed to buck the recession that dragged down the rest of retail, growing 11% to reach $155.2 billion, according to Forrester Research. The research firm is predicting in a report out Monday that e-commerce in America will grow another 11% this year.

Just a few years ago, online shopping was growing at more than 20% per year. But today, that growth is stabilizing, as shopping habits have shifted to make buying online a more regular occurrence for many types of products. Already, 52% of all computer hardware, software and peripherals are bought online, says Forrester – and growth in online sales of those products is likely to slow considerably in the coming years.

“There are still high levels of growth. But we are on a much bigger base now,” says Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester’s e-commerce analyst. Compare 11% online growth to the 2.5% predicted by the National Retail Federation for U.S. retail overall in 2010.

In 2010, e-commerce will likely account for 7% of all U.S. shopping, excluding auto, travel, and prescription drugs. That could go as high as 20% someday, says Mulpuru, as a generation that has grown up with e-commerce gains more spending power. In the immediate term, online shopping is going to be driven by purchases of electronics and apparel and footwear, and relatively less mature categories such as furniture, beauty products and groceries.

And a new area of focus for retailers isn’t online buying at all. Rather, it us using the Internet and mobile technology to influence sales that happen in stores. Already Forrester’s study found that 42% of all retail purchases in 2009 – worth some $917 billion – were influenced by the Web in some way. By 2014 that figure is likely to jump to 53%.

In the future, the lines between online and offline commerce are going to get even more blurry. “If somebody buys from a mobile device in your store, is that a Web sale or a store sale?” asks Mulpuru. Retailers “need to think of some new ways that they can take into account the Web’s influence,” she says.

SOURCE: blogs.wsj.com

By Leslie Hand, research director, IDC Retail Insights

via retailcustomerexperience.com

IDC Retail Insights 2010 Top 10 Predictions

1. Retailers will seek growth strategies based on “same shopper” sales and first-time buyers.
2. Retailers will launch aggressive technology investment programs to support new business models while reducing traditional IT costs.
3. Retailers will extract more value from their supply chains, responding adeptly to customer, supplier, and regulatory influences.
4. The devil is in the details — retailers will find heaven where information informs intelligent automation.
5. Retailers will focus on customer experience solutions convergence.
6. Retailers will drive mobile consumer interaction — entering the open shopping era.
7. Retailers will focus on building customer intimacy and loyalty while improving brand performance.
8. Retail investments in demand intelligence and BI are driven by a need to lower inventory costs and be more customer centric.
9. Retailers will build sustainable lean retail enterprises.
10. Traditional retailers are on the Titanic; the approaching iceberg is online social commerce.

a fragment from Ten retail IT predictions for 2010