7 Supermarkets to visit in 2012

When interviewed for my book So You Want To Be Customer-Centric, Georges-Edouard Dias of L'Oréal pointed out the opportunity to truly improve the customer experience in many traditional supermarkets.  In his view:  “Many stores today aren't really user-friendly.  You need to drive there and park far away from the entrance.  When you get inside, it's hard to find the information you're looking for.  There are too many products to get a clear picture, and the staff aren't always much help either.  Not to mention that even if you know exactly which product you want to buy, it may not be in stock.”

Having just restocked our fridge at the local hypermarket, I can only agree that grocery shopping can seem like a stressful, inefficient and occasionally depressing endeavour.  

While it was tempting to write a post on "fixing the supermarket experience", I decided to take a positive view and instead look for supermarkets which are making the experience of grocery shopping painless, or even enjoyable.  As much of the industry is still stuck in its orthodoxies, the examples weren't always easy to find.  But the seven below definitely stood out enough to make my 11 year old son conclude: "if these people can do this, why can't supermarkets do it everywhere".  I think he's got a point, so if you're working in the supermarket trade, you may want to visit a few of the stores below for inspiration.

MPREIS in Tirol (Austria)
If you thought supermarkets were square boxes which lacked any form of architectural imagination, MPreis in Austria is clearly intent on proving you wrong.  Launched 90 years ago, this Tirolian supermarket chain is known for making sure their supermarkets are architectural beauties beyond compare in their industry.

EATALY in New York
Part deli, part experience, part restaurant and with a massive beer garden on the roof, Eataly is somewhat hard to define.  But what is pretty clear is that this high end Italian megastore is pretty on the ball when it comes to creating a food shopping experience to remember.  Not to mention the art of securing the margin that goes with it.   The video below says it all.



H-E-B in San Antonio, Texas
In early 2010, this Texas supermarket decided to group all male skincare in a Men's Zone.  This was driven by the insight that most guys, especially in Texas, don't really feel at ease looking for their products alongside female hygiene and hair removal products.  The results were phenomenal with a year-on-year sales increase of 11% on a range of 534 personal care items.  


ChronoDrive/ChronoVillage, France
We have all seen the "shop online and pick up in store" programmes which most advanced supermarkets have implemented.  But France's Auchan has taken matters a step further by designing a Chronodrive service station where you can  collect your groceries in 5 minutes or less.  The current format upgrade, Chronovillage even helps you secure a freshly baked baguette, a good bottle of wine or a rose to remind your spouse how much you love her (hey, it's France).  These extras are provided by complementary specialty stores which surround the pick-up zone. Apparently the format is hitting it off, as Auchan has announced a quite aggressive roll-out plan.

Kaiser's Berlin, Germany
The Futurelab blog already covered the store in 2009, but Kaiser's in Berlin is still the most senior friendly supermarket that I've ever seen.  From magnifying glasses to read prices to modified trolleys, every aspect of this food retailer has been adapted to the needs of those who aren't as young as the product managers that typically market to them.  As the world's population keeps aging, this is one retailer everyone needs to watch.



Tesco Homeplus, Korea
Sure, I know it's shown up in every retail presentation of 2011, but Tesco out-innovated everyone with its subway station smartphone stores.  If you would have missed it, or would like to indulge once more, do check out the video.




The People's Supermarket in London, UK
Last one in the row is a supermarket that doesn't use special furniture, architecture or technology to create a unique experience, but manages to do so nonetheless.  Owned by it's customers, who are also regularly asked to lend a hand in the restocking the aisles or servicing customers, The People's Supermarket focuses on local, authentic products at fair prices.  




Did I miss anyone who's equally remarkable?
This was my little list of remarkable supermarkets.  Do you know of a chain that should also be on the list, then please use the comment section below to add to this post. I'm always happy to learn about new customer experience innovators.

7 New Profit Opportunities in Mobile Retail

We’re starting to experiment with something new at Futurelab which should make Chris Anderson proud.  In the past, we have occasionally published reports on the things that were wrong in an industry or situation.  But we got frustrated at ourselves because we felt like we were telling the patient that he was ill, yet didn’t provide the medicine.  Especially as – because of all our research work and projects – we are sitting on more of that medicine than we can process.

So we decided to start giving it away.  Not all of it - we have to make some sort of living :-) - yet enough for those who want to start curing themselves.  Our first project in this direction is the report you can find below. It covers 7 New Profit Opportunities in Mobile Retail.

Open publication - Free publishing - More profit

Based on a visual survey we have done in the Benelux, Germany, Greece, Romania, Russia and Ukraine, we have asked our non-mobile retail specialists to look at the mobile retail situation.  We did the trend analysis.  Compared best practices.  We talked to consumers.  We organized an internal think tank.  And rather than just say what is wrong, we formulated 7 pragmatic steps that anyone in mobile retailing can take to start improving the customer experience and profitability of their stores.  And then we put it on this blog.

Which gets us to the second part of the experiment.   There must be more than 7 new profit opportunities out there.  And those we wrote down, should be open for improvement.  So we want to invite you to do just that.  Add to it, comment below, mash up the report, criticize it.  Everything is published under Creative Commons, so as long as you spell our name right and you keep sharing it for free, we’re cool.

Enjoy the read.

Two Presentations on Shopper Marketing

Last week I was in Bucharest to present at the Shopper Marketing Conference which was organized by our great friends at Evensys.  For the perusal of the people who participated in this event, or who ever else is interested, I have uploaded PDF’s of the presentations for downloading here.

Seven Thoughts on "Real"€ Flagships

While I have never had much patience for those who proposed opening a flagship store because no retailer wanted to stock all the product,  I do believe that in our age of media-fragmentation a flagship is becoming a must consider for every major brand.

So, here are seven thoughts I’ve started picking up when running retail and marketing for Reebok and have refined over the years.

Start with the story.
Flagships are tactile story-telling machines that provide a three-dimensional picture of your brand and the essence of what it stands for.  This means that before you even start briefing the architect you need to be able to tell this story in a way that excites your friends, parents and children.

Think beyond the walls
Architects have a tendency to think in bricks and mortar, yet there is no reason that your story should limit itself to the physical world.  Look at it as an opportunity to reach out to your customers.  Extend it to the internet, build communities, invite consumers to co-develop and shape your environment.

Be Bold
Real flagships are “larger than life”.  At Reebok, we helped construct a complete football stadium,  Apple’s 5th Avenue store is open 365/24, and Mercedes’ € 150 million museum is both an architectural as well as a branding feat of monumental proportions.  If you don’t make the CFO nervous, you’re thinking too small.

Don’t forget the actors
The world of flagships is a stage, and for everyone visiting the facility the people that work there are your brand.  That’s why you should approach them with both the respect as the discipline of a Broadway director.  Ensure your story has a script and that every actor plays it to perfection. 

Don’t forget business sense.
Opening a flagship is easy, yet making it successful is the hard part.  Plan your flagship business as if subsidies don’t exist.  Collect entrance fees, sell souvenirs, rent out facilities, sell media value to the marketing department.  In short, stay true to the brand, yet run things like a business, not just a shop-window.

Get Support to Be Single-minded
When it comes to flagships, everyone is an architect.  Get a senior level support to make sure you can avoid “design by committee” and ensure a pure expression of the brand.  Yet never forget who’s bankrolling you … if the C-man asks whether that wall can be in blue, find a way to make it happen. 

Break Ground as Quickly as Possible
As long as the bulldozers haven’t broken the ground, your project is at risk.  A bad quarter can make people look for “quick wins” and flagships are easy prey as long as they are only maquettes.  However, psychology ensures that once the masons go to work, things usually keep going.

And above all, don’t forget to have fun.  Flagships are a celebration of your brand.  If they become a drag to build, those who visit them will eventually notice.

Siemens Invents Video Labels for Food

If you thought narrowcasting and digital displays where the thing to focus on as a trendy marketeer, then think of this one.  Siemens has come up with a new type of electronically enhanced label which allows projecting video on the label itself.

Imagine going for eggs and actually seeing the chicken run around on the packaging.  Harry Potter?  Long-term future?  Not really, Siemens expects the product to be commercially available in 2007.

via Foodnavigator