Dear Retail Friends, Customers, and Prospects,

Earlier this month we had the opportunity to both speak at and attend the first annual UCLA EVOLVE Conference. This conference was very impressive with great speakers and overall visionaries predicting the future of retailing.   If you are not familiar with this conference, I recommend you keep an eye out for it next year it held in March, and I highly recommend attending.

I enjoyed the conference keynote speaker Jason Hreha, a scientist that works for Walmart, who determines how to improve the shopping experience and increase sales.  He mentioned a theory stating that all businesses are in the business of changing behavior and attitude.  I thought this was interesting because many retailers focus on the look and feel of their stores but I wondered, do they sit back and analyze how they are trying to improve their customers’ lives?  This power messaging is something that all retailers need to consider, especially in this time of experiential retail.

As for technology, this is where I focus and love to concentrate. One thing that stood out for me was that RFID is not just for the high-end retailer anymore.  The price point is very low, and it can significantly improve the shopping experience by making rich content readily availability on the sales floor.  One of the goals of retailers is to bring the rich shopping experience consumers have grown used to online into their brick-and-mortar stores and this technology can help usher this in.

Another technology that has been around a while but is going mainstream now is beacons.  Beacons allow you to the same thing that websites do; precisely track consumer behavior.  By observing your customers while they shop in your stores, you know what merchandise is attracting attention and can zero in on improving this part of your store.  Beacons also allow you to push messages to your customer while they are near your stores and then offer them an incentive to take action now., This brings the benefit of a website down to your store creating a seamless journey to keep them coming back, right?

These are just a few of the valuable tidbits that I learned at this conference and look forward to sharing this technology with retailers. I hope I’ve enlightened you on a few exciting things.  Have a prosperous April.

Scott Kreisberg
CEO, One Step Retail Solutions