May 2012 trendwatching.com’s free Monthly Trend Briefing (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION etail is retail is etail INTRODUCTION Exactly as predicted by e-gurus 15 years ago, e-commerce is hotter than SOME OBLIGATORY STATS: ever. Whether in mature markets, where consumer spending is shifting • US e-commerce sales will grow 62% by 2016, to USD 327 billion (Source: online, or in growth markets where rapid urbanization and increasing Forrester, February 2012). (mobile) internet penetration are unlocking new shopping habits, shoppers • European e-commerce sales will grow by 78% by 2016, to USD 230 billion are ‘e-commercing’ it up. (Source: Forrester, February 2012). Now, consumers’ current ‘online’ experiences are of course fundamentally • Brazilian e-commerce sales will grow 21.9% in 2012 to USD 18.7 billion (Source: eMarketer, January 2012). different to those during the early dotcom boom: e-commerce is no longer just about choice, price, convenience, reviews and ratings, but also about • Chinese e-commerce sales were CNY 780 billion (USD 124 billion) in 2011, an increase of 66% from 2010. E-commerce is expected to rise from 3% of everything that consumers look for in any purchase: status, the right consumption to 7% by 2015 (Source: IDC, March 2012). product and a compelling experience. • India’s e-commerce market is expected to grow to USD 70 billion by 2020, from just USD 600 million in 2011 (Source: Technopak Advisors, February 2012). • Indonesian e-commerce sales are forecast to grow from USD 120 million in 2010 to USD 650 million by 2015 (Source: Frost & Sullivan, February 2012). www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 2 CONTENTS #1: E IS FOR For consumers who are constantly connected, buying online is simply another option, rather than a wholly separate and distinct medium. EVERYWHERE Featuring sub-trends like: SCREEN CULTURE, ALL THE WEB’S A (SHOP) WINDOW and ON TO OFF / OFF TO ON. Going ‘online’ now means immersing oneself in (and enthusiastically #2: METAIL adding to) a rich, personalized, social web. Featuring sub-trends CASHING IN ON CURATION, SELL-YOUR-OWN STORES, RETAIL INVESTMENT and AT YOUR SERVICE. All the barriers initially holding e-commerce back (e.g. correct fit, secure #3: E(Asy) payments, convenient deliveries) have been significantly reduced, if not COMMERCE totally removed. Featuring sub-trends PERFECT FIT, DELIVERY DELIGHT, LIFE: SUBSCRIBED and PERFECT PAYMENTS.. #4: OH THAT Consumer expectations at large are now set online. Endless choice, instant gratification, total transparency, seamless collaboration, the list WONDERFUL WEB goes on… Featuring sub-trends like NICHE RICHE, CROWD CLOUT, TOTAL TRANSPARENCY, ETAIL-TAINMENT and EXCLUSIVE EXPERIENCES. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 3 #1 E IS FOR EVERYWHERE For consumers who are constantly connected, buying online is simply another option, rather than a wholly separate and distinct medium. For consumers, the very act of navigating to a website, locating SCREEN CULTURE / and then buying a specific product is giving way to a world where (e)commerce is always just a click (or a point, tap, swipe) away. ALL THE WEB’S A (SHOP) WINDOW / Indeed, e-commerce is rapidly being joined by ‘m-’ and ‘t-’ commerce ON TO OFF / (via mobile, tablet and TV). Whatever the medium, consumers will use OFF TO ON / any and every available technology that helps them find and buy the right product, at the right price, in a manner they enjoy. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 4 We looked at the all-pervasive SCREEN * Note: That’s it in this Trend Briefing for SCREEN CULTURE in our 12 Crucial Consumer Trends m-commerce. Yes, the lines between mobile and online are getting more blurred by the day, for 2012. Now, for (r)etailers, everything from especially for mobile-first consumers in emerging CULTURE bus stops to TV programs can be an outlet, as markets, but to keep this manageable, for us and consumers armed with smartphones or tablets you, we’ll save looking at all the m-commerce embrace innovative new applications and developments for another Trend Briefing! technologies to shop wherever and whenever*. Tesco Homeplus: Glamour & L’Oreal: QR code bus stop stores Fashion Taxis QR code ‘shopping walls’ have popped up During New York’s Fashion Week, Glamour everywhere since Tesco Homeplus’ pilot in Korea. magazine partnered with L’Oreal to enable The company has now extended the initiative to passengers riding in selected cabs to buy 20 bus stops in Seoul, after becoming the number Lancôme products they saw featured on the in- one shopping app in Korea with nearly one million cab TV screens. downloads. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 5 SCREEN CULTURE QR code virtual shops ‘Watch with eBay’ iPad app Other online brands deploying the stores include eBay’s new iPad app includes ‘Watch With eBay’. eBay in both London and New York, PayPal in Users enter the channel they are viewing to see Singapore, luxury fashion retailer Net-a-Porter, relevant items available for purchase. For example, and online grocery store Ocado. Traditional sports fans watching a game can buy memorabilia retailers such as Toys”R”Us, Sears and Kmart, as relevant to the teams on screen. well as manufacturers such as Procter & Gamble have also deployed the ‘stores’. With their winning combination of novelty, convenience and low set-up costs, shopping walls could be one retail innovation that runs and runs. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 6 It’s not just offline that consumers are able * As with many new technologies, some publishers won’t ALL THE WEB’S to seamlessly buy almost everything they be able to resist the temptation to blanket their photos and videos with intrusive ads. You shouldn’t need us to tell you encounter (see our February/March 2012 Trend to only embed subtle, helpful and most importantly welcome A (SHOP) Briefing on POINT-KNOW-BUY). Online too, product links. And no, aggressive pop-ups will never people can increasingly click, find, and then become ‘cool’. WINDOW buy items they see in images or videos*. IKEA & ThingLink: Shoppable images Stipple: Image marketplace IKEA have been using ThingLink technology to Stipple offers consumers the ability to discover, embed product links into the images on their and then purchase objects in images. Swedish blog, enabling customers to shop directly from the photos. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 7 ALL THE WEB’S A (SHOP) Gucci: Shop the Spring/ ClickBerry: Tag videos to WINDOW Summer 2012 video make them interactive Until POINT-KNOW-BUY technologies can ClickBerry offers a number of solutions to make be accurately deployed by people merely videos interactive, by enabling publishers to add watching videos online, it’s up to brands to create clickable areas to their videos. ‘shoppable’ videos. Which is exactly what Gucci have done to promote their Spring/Summer 2012 collection. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 8 While virtually all consumers are now online, Because after all, as we observed in RETAIL ON TO OFF sometimes it makes sense for even the RENAISSANCE, consumers will continue to biggest online brands to branch out from crave ‘real world’ experiences for a long time to their virtual roots and reach out to customers come. in the real world too. Amazon: Google: Rumored Dublin Launching retail stores? store In February 2012, industry blog Good E Reader Following their pop-up Chromebook store in reported that Amazon would launch a retail store London in October 2011, a planning application in its hometown of Seattle, to showcase its branded in January 2012 led to rumors that Google was physical products such as the Kindle. planning to open a retail store in Dublin, Ireland. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 9 ON TO OFF Groupon: Available at kiosks in Chicago Living Social: 918 F Street Daily deal site Groupon launched interactive Groupon competitor Living Social opened 918 F kiosks in Chicago in January 2012, enabling Street, a 28,000 square foot, six story building people to buy deals for local businesses direct in Washington DC. The space is used to host the from the machines. experiences that the site sells online, such as cooking, painting and yoga classes. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 10 ON TO OFF Threadless & GAP: Online retailer’s t-shirts StylistPick: Meet the sold in stores curators at pop-up store Threadless, the crowdsourced t-shirt site that Personalized online accessory subscription service became one of the web’s most successful retailers, StylistPick opened a pop-up store in London’s launched a collaboration with GAP in February Westfield shopping center in February 2012, where 2012. The partnership saw 25 t-shirt designs from fans could meet the celebrity curators behind their the online brand available in selected GAP stores selections. and online. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 11 Just as consumers enjoy finding previously OFF TO ON online-only brands offline, they also expect the offline to be accessible online. Now, while there’s obviously nothing new about brands selling online, these recent OFF TO ON innovations stand out: Google Catalogs: App Turnhills: offers digital versions of Window shop online store catalogs store Turnhills is a crowdsourced online photo directory Google’s Catalogs tablet app brings real world of real store windows. Launched in December catalogs online. The app features digital catalogs 2011, the site currently covers New York. from brands such as Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Sephora and Williams- Sonoma. Users can search for products within and across catalogs, and either buy online or locate in-store products. www.trendwatching.com (R)ETAIL (R)EVOLUTION 12 OFF TO ON PanoPlaza: Online Plink: Facebook credits for shopping in real stores offline purchases Japan based PanoPlaza launched in January January 2012 also saw the launch of Plink, a 2012.