Prepare for the future

of shopping.
14 retail experts talk about the future of shopping
and what you can do to prepare.

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Table of contents.
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 3
01 Retailers must adopt the four pillars of Amazon success to thrive.

Bryan Eisenberg, Founder and CMO, IdealSpot ............................................................................ 4
02 Delivering personalized experiences will be key.

Melissa Gonzalez, Chief Pop-Up Architect, The Lionesque Group ................................................ 6
03 The days of one-size-fits-all customer service are over.

Jim Roddy, President, Innovative Retail Technologies .................................................................. 7
04 Retailers must be prepared for Amazons no-click future.

Steve Mader, Vice President Digital & Retail Insights, Kantar Retail ........................................... 8
05 Retailers will eliminate inefficiencies in managing staff.

Kristin Harris, General Manager, Deputy...................................................................................... 10
06 Retailers will use technology to strengthen customer relationships while

making operations easier. Brent Spicer, CEO, Collect Apps ...............................................11
07 Retailers will increase their efforts to set up fully integrated systems.

Jessica Pearse, Events and Product Marketing Specialist, Unleashed Software ........................ 12
08 Many of the fundamentals will stay the same.

Ryan Baker, CEO, Timely ............................................................................................................. 13
09 Business collectives will continue trending.

Chris Benham and Angelka Vegar, Storbie .................................................................................. 14
10 Retailers should expect an uptick in competition.

Kevin Loomis, VP-Product Development & Co-Founder, Ecomdash ........................................... 15
11 The future of retail will be transparent, dynamic, and seamless.

Keith Anderson, VP, Strategy & Insights, Profitero ....................................................................... 16
12 Retailers must make authentic connections.

Bridget Johns, Head of Customer Success, RetailNext ............................................................... 18
13 The future of retail is mobile.

Jon Worley, CEO of Proximity Marketing division, Proxama ........................................................ 19
14 Retailers must get back to the basics.

Luigi Mallardo, VP of Global Sales and Marketing, Whisbi .......................................................... 20
About Vend......................................................................................................................................... 22

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Introduction.
As the retail industry continues to evolve, merchants who want to thrive in the
coming years need to be more forward-thinking. After all, one of the keys to
succeeding in the future is to anticipate it. Of course, predicting the future is easier
said than done. Theres no crystal ball that can give you a fool-proof glimpse of
whats ahead, but we do have the next best thing.
To help you gain a better understanding of whats next in the retail industry, we got
in touch with 14 retail experts and influencers and asked them:
What is the future of retail and what can merchants do to prepare?
The answers they provided were thought-provoking and diverse. They covered a
range of topics that are relevant to retailers of all types and sizes, so no matter what
kind of store youre running or what industry youre in, youre bound to get some
ideas and more importantly action steps from the insights in this piece.

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01
Retailers must adopt the four
pillars of Amazon success
to thrive.

We are busier than ever and want things faster

and easier with less commitment. We want
personalized experiences that account for our
preferences and constraints.
Bryan Eisenberg, Founder and CMO, IdealSpot
Twitter @TheGrok | LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/bryaneisenberg

Brick & mortar retail has a real advantage. People love to touch, feel and
experience great shopping. The challenge is they need to develop the culture
to compete with the likes of Amazon. Just as Wal-Mart didnt put everyone out of
business, neither will Amazon, yet it is going to hurt a lot of businesses that dont
adapt soon.
The top source of friction most customers are feeling today is the effect of time
crunch. We are busier than ever and want things faster and easier with less
commitment. We want personalized experiences that account for our preferences
and constraints. Retailers must track these trends and find ways to create remarkable
customer experiences that save our customers their precious time.

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What can you do to prepare for the future?

The key to success is to adopt what I like to call the 4 pillars of Amazons success:
1. Be Customer Centric Ask yourself: will you be in the business of helping your
customers buy, or in the business of trying to sell them hard?
2. Be Creative In todays environment, and with our need to keep up with our
customers, we must find ways to experiment. Figure out what works, what
doesnt, and what is going to work next. Start small but keep experimenting.
3. Be Focused on Customer Experience What are the little details of your store
saying to your customers about what you think of them? What are the remarkable
things in your customer experience?
4. Continuously Improve & Optimize What data are you using to make your
decisions? How often are you acting on this data? Is this data aligned with your
brand and customer experience?
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02
Delivering personalized
experiences will be key.

Merchants should be able to know who they

are serving and providing products for, how
often those customers shop, and have the ability
to offer them relevant perks.
Melissa Gonzalez, Chief Pop-Up Architect, The Lionesque Group
Twitter @MelsStyles | LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/melissagonzalezlionesque

The future of retail will encompass the continuous evolution of consumer

connectivity and immersive interaction. Retailers must be prepared to deliver
a personalized experience to shoppers, whether their store is small or large.
If your POS system isnt providing in-depth analytics on your customers, inventory
and conversions, its time to upgrade ASAP. Merchants should be able to know
who they are serving and providing products for, how often those customers shop,
and have the ability to offer them relevant perks. These dont always need to be
discounts, but could be alerts when top products are back in stock, or exclusive first
looks on new launches.
Incorporating sensors in stores is so affordable now there is little reason for a
merchant not to have them. With knowledge of traffic patterns and trends via
companies like Placemeter, merchants can better serve their customers with
pertinent hours of operation and more. They can take the interaction further with
beacon technology from companies like Footmarks, better targeting the delivery of
deals and personalized incentives.
To bridge the online-offline experience, merchants need to be sure they understand
their customers in all environments online, mobile and in-store.
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03
The days of one-size-fits-all
customer service are over.

I cant tell you the exact future of retail, but I can

point you to the person who has that answer:
your customer.
Jim Roddy, President, Innovative Retail Technologies
Twitter @Jim_Roddy | LinkedIn linkedin.com/pub/jim-roddy/6/523/a68

The days of one-size-fits all customer service are in our rear view mirror. Today
retailers are challenged to innovate in order to provide as individualized a customer
experience as possible.
Our organization feels so strongly about this trend that we changed our magazines
name from Integrated Solutions for Retailers to Innovative Retail Technologies. We
have seen leading retailers shift from focusing on back-end efficiency to embracing
new technologies and philosophies that help attract and retain loyal customers.
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04
Retailers must be prepared for
Amazons no-click future.

There will be resurgence in the category

specialist that can convey their expertise
through a curated assortment that helps
reduce shopper angst.
Steve Mader, Vice President Digital & Retail Insights, Kantar Retail
Twitter @StephenMader | LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/stephenmader

When you look at the entirety of Amazons recent big bets Amazon Prime Now,
Echo Voice Re-ordering, Amazons Choice, Dash Replenishment Service, and Dash
Buttons, the long term strategy of this Amazon as a service idea becomes clear:
the retail giant is envisioning a no-click future.

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In Amazons vision of a no-click future, once a shopper has made their brand or
item choice, it will work behind the scenes to ensure the lifetime consumption of that
choice is as frictionless as possible.
This has a couple of massive implications for how suppliers will go to market with
Amazon:
1. Highly promotional categories will be disrupted as it becomes excruciatingly
difficult to switch a shopper out of their replenishment-locked item.
2. Continued separation of Best Seller SKUs away from the general assortment.
3. Item level profitability on Best Seller SKUs will become even more important as
the focus on replenishing individual products will likely result in smaller basket
size, and thus a higher cost of fulfillment per item, unless significant order
consolidation occurs.

What about merchants that are competing against

Amazon?
The retailers who can compete are those which create value by reducing the stress
of the shopping mission. Shopping on an Amazon (or any of the ecommerce mass
merchants) can often result in choice fatigue due to the huge assortment. There will
be resurgence in the category specialist that can convey their expertise through a
curated assortment that helps reduce shopper angst.
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05
Retailers will eliminate
inefficiencies in managing staff.

With margins tighter than ever, the ability to

finely match customer demand with workforce
supply will become more critical than ever.
Kristin Harris, General Manager, Deputy
LinkedIn linkedin.com/pub/kristin-harris/2b/593/594

Ongoing technology advancements, growing competitive pressure, and

increasingly savvy consumers continue to impact retailers across all categories. At
the same time staffing remains the single largest controllable expense item on the
balance sheet. With margins tighter than ever, the ability to finely match customer
demand with workforce supply will become more critical than ever.
Like inventory errors, employee mismanagement can be extremely costly. The key to
establishing an optimal workforce is eliminating inefficiencies in managing staff. For
retail operators now and in the future, accurate labor budgeting and planning is the
foundation of real-time retail agility.
Its all about making sure the right person, with the right skills, is in the right store
at the right time while accounting for full and part-time ratios, labor policies and
union rules. This can be the difference between bumper customer spending or
lackluster sales.
Only by integrating day-to-day operational management with employee scheduling,
and time and attendance processes can retailers hope to increase the accuracy of
labor forecasts. With real-time visibility and analytical insight retailers can plan with
more certainty and predictability. The upshot of that is only paying for labor when its
truly needed, helping ensure optimal customer experiences while improving bottomline business results.
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06
Retailers will use technology to
strengthen customer relationships
while making operations easier.

Consumer technology is moving fast, and

retailers are faced with the exciting (and a little
bit terrifying) challenge of keeping up in todays
mobile and social world.
Brent Spicer, CEO, Collect Apps
Twitter twitter.com/collectspice | Linkedin nz.linkedin.com/in/brentspicer

The future of retail is all about using technology to strengthen customer

relationships and improve the customer experience, while making the day-to-day
operations easier for merchants.
Take an emerging consumer technology like Apple Passbook, soon to be Apple
Wallet, for example. Consumers use Passbook to keep their coupons and loyalty
cards in one place on their iOS device and will soon be able to pay using the same
app. This is a technology thats just now available for merchants to start taking
advantage of. As more and more consumers adopt it, it will become vital as they
demand to use it in-store. But to ensure it actually improves the customer experience
it needs to be fully integrated with point-of-sale and your loyalty software or offers
marketing engine, so that it runs slickly, speeding up transactions over the counter.
Its all about recognising emerging consumer technologies, implementing them early,
and in a way that improves the customer experience, while making things easier
for staff. And all while creating that wow factor that puts your store ahead of the
competition making it a fun and interactive shopping experience.
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07
Retailers will increase
their efforts to set up fully
integrated systems.

Retailers now face an adaption process for the

changing lifestyles and patterns of consumer
behaviour.
Jessica Pearse, Events + Product Marketing Specialist, Unleashed Software
LinkedIn au.linkedin.com/pub/jessica-pearse/90/88b/395

It is the consumers expectations that drive the demand for numerous shopping
options, access to a large amount of product data, retail comparisons, competitive
offers, constant availability of brand options and so on.
Due to this rising demand, retailers are increasing their efforts to set up a fully
integrated system to not only meet their clients needs, but also allow for flexibility,
and support new ideas with little disruption to their profit and sales. At the core of
this model is supply chain and inventory management. While the typical interaction is
with POS and ecommerce systems, retail businesses need to have the mechanisms
to both take and feed data in real time to report on cost of goods, warehouse
location and how much stock there is on hand.
The future for retail will involve an integrated eco-system to ensure complete visibility
and efficient supply chain management.
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08
Many of the fundamentals will
stay the same.

While the retail industry is set to change more in

the next few years than it ever has, many of the
fundamentals will stay the same.
Ryan Baker, CEO, Timely
Twitter twitter.com/ryanbakernz | LinkedIn nz.linkedin.com/in/ryanbakernz

Successful retailers will continue to put their customers experience at the centre
of their world.
Retailers have the opportunity to forge deeper relationships with customers who
are carrying, wearing and even driving more and more connected devices. These
devices collect and share all sorts of data, which will allow customers to receive
the best products and services, in a completely personalised way, at the right time,
wherever they happen to be.
Done right, every customer will feel like a VIP on Rodeo Drive, whether they are
shopping in store, at home, on the bus, or in their sleep. Retailers can prepare for
this by treating this future as an evolution rather than a revolution. Bake change into
the culture of your retail business and make small advances in the technology and
systems you use on a regular basis.
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09
Business collectives will
continue trending.

Business collectives (i.e. when competing

or complementary businesses band together)
are trending.
Chris Benham and Angelka Vegar, Storbie
Twitter twitter.com/InspiredOnline | LinkedIn nz.linkedin.com/in/chrisbenham1

A recent notable example is New Zealand craft breweries with Wellington brewers
Yeastie Boys and Tuatara Breweries, Renaissance Brewing from Blenheim, 8 Wired
Brewing Co from Warkworth and Three Boys Brewery from Christchurch forming the
New Zealand Craft Beer Collective to help market their brands to Asia.

So what can retailers do to ensure they are ready

to take advantage of this trend?
Firstly it is important for retailers to find themselves a niche and become an expert
in that area. Niches such as Funk Estate and their Seriously Funky Brews allow them
to take advantage of a craft brewery collective but still stand out from the crowd.
By establishing a niche, retailers can maintain margins when consumers have online
access to products from all over the world. In addition, operating within a niche
provides an opportunity for retailers to grow their audience. Where once a retailer
was limited by their geographical boundaries and lack of numbers to service a
niche, now, by adopting a multi-channel strategy which includes physical retail and
ecommerce, they can tap into already-established communities of customers around
the globe who are passionate about what they are selling. And by joining collectives,
retailers can effectively sell to the converted.
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10
Retailers should expect an
uptick in competition.

An increasingly low barrier to entry for

ecommerce, in conjunction with a growing
variety of online selling tools, will encourage
more and more businesses to enter the industry
and create competition for current sellers.
Kevin Loomis, VP-Product Development & Co-Founder, Ecomdash
LinkedIn linkedin.com/pub/kevin-loomis/6b/880/28b

This uptick in competition will likely drive down prices and cut profits, forcing
current retailers to get creative and find cheaper ways to source products, up their
omni-channel marketing strategy and begin selling to alternative markets and
niches to make up the loss.
Many of the businesses now selling online may also grow operations to include brick
and mortar or pop-up stores in effort to mature their business model and establish
their brand. Others may also begin to test new marketplaces and find which channel
is most profitable for their products. Though most businesses today sell on Amazon,
eBay, a shopping cart and through a POS system, the introduction of burgeoning
ecommerce marketplaces will likely encourage sellers to list their products via new
sales channels. I think we may see sellers expand to all available channels as they
arise within the space.
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11
The future of retail will be
transparent, dynamic, and
seamless.

Going forward, expect retail to be transparent,

dynamic and seamless.
Keith Anderson, VP, Strategy & Insights, Profitero
Twitter linkedin.com/in/keithanderson101 | LinkedIn twitter.com/KeithAnderson

Going forward, expect retail to be:

1. Transparent Shoppers already have unprecedented access to detailed
information about retailers pricing, promotions, and individual products. Recent
data from Deloitte suggests that $0.64 of every dollar purchased in retail stores
is digitally influenced, so dont count on shoppers being uninformed.
2. Dynamic As ecommerce and digital influence grow, many aspects of retailing
are becoming more dynamic. Profitero data shows that Amazon, for example,
changes prices on millions of products daily.
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Greater transparency means that your competitors likely have better intelligence too.
Anticipate that competitors will see anything shoppers do, and consider investing in
competitive monitoring capabilities to take advantage of growing transparency.
Business planning cycles that used to take months or longer are being compressed
to near real-time. Expect more retailers to invest in capabilities that give them
continuous visibility into key performance indicators like stock levels, sales, and staff
scheduling and help them make optimal decisions on the fly.
Tomorrows shoppers will expect a consistent experience online and in-store
and transactions as quick, easy, and personal as some of their favorite non-retail
experiences.
Forward-thinking merchants will set the bar high for their customers experience
and eliminate friction in everyday customer interactions like paying for or returning
products.

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12
Retailers must make authentic
connections.
Whether online or in physical stores, the future
of retail lies in making authentic connections
with shoppers and engaging with them on a
personal level.
Bridget Johns, Head of Customer Success, RetailNext
Twitter twitter.com/bridgetjohns

With todays shopper and her new shopping journeys, its becoming more
important than ever to optimize a shoppers visit to store or site. This can be
through an understanding of what shes shopping for and ensuring theres available
inventory on site, or at least a very convenient option to the shopper to deliver
products to her.
Specific to retail stores, because of the lower frequency of shopping trips and store
visits, the imperative arises to deliver an authentic, seamless, branded shopping
experience from the most optimal shopper interactions with staff to the minimum
points of friction in the shopping process. These are the things that will establish a
store as a retailer of choice and keep her coming back. To position itself best in the
competitive retail space, a brand should utilize technology touchpoints to connect
with the customer, with the goal of capturing opportunities to engage and retain a
loyal following. Some of the best examples include fitness apparel, where companies
like UnderArmor and Nike have invested in fitness apps, giving them a very authentic
way to connect with customers.
Authenticity is so important. Shoppers can sense a lack of authenticity, and because
of the wealth of alternative products, channels and retailers, they quickly move off
one brand and onto another.
Lastly, retailers need to ensure in-store technology is designed around the shopper,
her journey, and resolve her pain points. The shopper is key whats good for her is
good for the business.
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13
The future of retail is mobile.

We are fast approaching a place where mobile

technology will offer retailers a channel that will
create a perfect synergy between payments,
loyalty, marketing and advertising.
Jon Worley, CEO of Proximity Marketing division, Proxama
LinkedIn linkedin.com/pub/jon-worley/2/329/122

The mobile device is increasingly becoming an essential part of the customers

shopping journey. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons, NFC and QR codes are
the latest proximity technologies on offer to retailers, providing an opportunity to
engage with customers via their smartphone. Mobile payment technologies such as
Apple Pay are already using this type of innovation but, despite the relatively slow
consumer uptake of this technology, the smart retailer will be looking beyond just
mobile payments.
Retailers should be thinking ahead about implementing these technologies within a
mobile strategy that cleverly integrates mobile payments with customer loyalty and
marketing initiatives. This is where the future will get interesting.
Retailers that have designed a mobile offering that links mobile payment
infrastructure with sensitively planned marketing messaging and valuable loyalty
initiatives will have the best chance of delivering a unique and engaging mobileenhanced in-store shopping experience.
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14
Retailers must get back to
the basics.
We at Whisbi believe that the key of retail
success lies in getting back to basics, to the
roots of the shopping experience.
Luigi Mallardo, VP of Global Sales and Marketing, Whisbi
Twitter twitter.com/luigimallardo | LinkedIn es.linkedin.com/in/luigimallardo

It is very remarkable that most companies predict that they will be competing mainly
on the level of customer experience instead of price or products in a few years time.
Its the result of a customer (r)evolution. Shoppers now want to have it all: they
demand convenience, speed and ease, yet they dont want to sacrifice either the
quality of the products or the quality of the shopping experience.
We believe that the best indicator is the typically huge gap between online sales
conversion rates and that of physical stores. Approximately $4 trillion worth of
merchandise is left in online shopping carts each year. For bigger companies, this
means lost revenue, yet for smaller companies it translates not only into profit loss
but also an existential threat.
Our personal learning is that if you can recreate a real store experience 100% online,
then the sales conversion you can expect is closer to in-store conversion than to
online rates. As digital interactions already influence one third of spending at physical
stores and cross-channel shoppers tend to spend more according to studies,
omnichannel solutions will hold huge business potential in the future.
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Take steps to future-proof your retail business.

Now that you have some idea of what to expect in the coming months and years, its
time to think up ways to future-proof your store.
Take the insights that youve learned above and figure out the best course of action.
Talk to your customers and staff, do some research on solutions and technologies
that can help you meet your goals, then take the steps to achieve them.
Good luck and heres to your current (and future) #retailsuccess!
PS: Looking for a tool that can help you future-proof your retail business? Vends
POS, inventory management, ecommerce and customer loyalty solution could be
right for you. Click here to learn more or take a free trial today.

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About Vend.
Vend is a cloud-based retail software platform that enables retailers to accept
payments, manage their inventories, reward customer loyalty and garner insights
into their business in real time. Vend is simple to set up, works with a wide range
of point-of-sale devices and operates on any web-capable device with a browser.
Whether its simplifying the inventory process, cutting 30 minutes from their
end-of-day bookkeeping or making it simpler for them to sell their products on
multiple channels, Vends mission is to make retailers lives easier.
With Vend, retailers are able to focus less on transaction and inventory concerns
and more on creating that relationship with their customers. Vend aims to empower
merchants by putting the right data and tools into retailers hands and enabling
them to do things themselves and succeed.

Run the worlds best retail

www.vendhq.com