Tag Archive for: imaginining the future
We have come to an end. This is the final article in this series and I’ve been struggling to find a fitting finale for it. We have covered topics ranging from customer service, customization, psychology to retail sustainability and global influence. All relevant sides to this major economic engine. I have conducted relevant research and read a lot of expert opinions. I think the only thing left to say is how I picture my future shopping experience.
What makes me so special?
Simply? The future shopper generation is my generation: The Millennials (Synchrony Financial, 2017). These shoppers will be technology-oriented. I am a futurist, hence the title. These shoppers will make purchases mostly online, but they will visit brick-and-stones store to benefit from merged service experiences! I’m partial to bookshop-cafés for example. Further, Millennial shoppers will opt for augmented reality to enhance their experience (ibid); I limit myself to trying out new hairstyles on mobile apps…
What I am trying to say is that I am a tiny drop in a massive storm that is about to come down on the retail industry. Together with my fellow “drops”, I have the power to shape the future and this is how I picture my future shopping experience:
First, I would like to bring to your attention the Law of Technological Adoption. As Taylor Romero said in his TED Talk “Everything invented before you were born: it’s just how it’s always been. Everything invented before you were 30: it’s innovation. Everything invented after you are 30: it’s impossible.” (Taylor Romero, 2016).
Let’s take a product that I like: books. You cannot go wrong with books. Nowadays, books come in many formats; hardcover, softcover, eBooks, audio books. When I was a kid, those formats were more limited. So, softcover and hardcover, it’s just how it’s always been. Ebooks? Innovation. I can take an entire library with me in just one tiny device, everywhere, every day. Currently, I’m still in my ‘innovation’ window of opportunity. What I really want, what I imagine many an avid reader wants, is total immersion in the world of stories.
I would love to walk into a bookshop and be welcomed by the smell of chocolate, hot pastry, and fresh paper. When I walk into a specific section, I want the authors to talk to me, let them be the advertisers.
Imagine a holographic Shakespeare popping up in the Classics section to tell you more about Hamlet, or King Lear, or Romeo and Juliet. This technology is not as science fiction as you might think. With the help of digital holographic projectors and optical screens that reflect the light of projected holographic 3-D images to a target observation area, digital 3-D signage and holographic in-car dashboard display is just around the door (Phys, 2016). Why shouldn’t it be adopted in the retail industry?
How wonderful would it be, if I would walk into the Fantasy aisle and an entire panorama of the Lord of the Rings’ Middle Earth would appear with Aragorn’s holographic self to escort me to the cashier. Talk about personalization!
If I had doubts about my choice of literature and immersion, then the augmented reality technology from my phone would help me understand what each book is about. In any of these situations, I would get my information instantly and accurately, no “buffering” for me, no sir! Because I have no patience. My gratification needs to be instant.
For a long time, I thought that this imagined experience was just wishful thinking, a daydream, but technology has this miraculous quality of transforming the abstract into almost tangible interactions.
Technology is the avatar of what we dream and cannot express.
It makes self-interaction possible without selfishness. The retail industry of the future can help me understand myself better: letting me explore the reasons why I like certain products or services, the reason why I chose them, or why I am not trying out new ones. Most importantly, the accessibility of the retail industry would be so easy; I would not be held back by the inertia of buying simply because it’s comfortable. Everything will be comfortable. What is left to say other than the fact that I am looking forward to the future. And William Shakespeare speaking to me from the aisles. And being guided to a cashier by a favourite character. Thank you for imagining the future with me.
This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.
This is the final entry for the Imagining the Future series. The entire collection can be read here.
What is the consumerism?
Consumerism in one of its interpretations is a doctrine which states that the increasing consumption of goods and services is the basis for a healthy economy (Business Dictionary, 2017). In other words, for a society to function properly, it must produce and sell goods and services (Shah, 2005). Capitalism 101. The more that is produced, purchased, and consumed, the more successful and prosperous the economy becomes. This culminates in the yearly gross national product (GNP), the measure of success every nation uses to rank its economic power (ibid).
What does that have to do with the Retail Industry?
Retailers are defined as the final link between manufacturers and consumers. Basically retailers are where demand and supply meet (The Balance, 2017). Philosophically, we could say that the retail industry is the wheel that turns the global economy. Round and round it goes. Yet, when mentioning consumerism, we often get a very negative impression. As if the world has gone bad. How can the world go bad, when the economy goes well? Does the wheel spin both ways?
I have touched on this subject on my previous entries. The moment when we, as consumers, ask for more goods, more performant, better quality, state-of the-art versions, we really confuse that poor wheel. Why? Even though we drive the economic forces that may result in a better purchasing power and life quality for us, we run the risk of stealing the same benefits from other people in other parts of the world. Or worse, we may be robbing future generations.
I am talking about the gap between the amount of resources we have and the speed through which we are using and misusing them.
Let’s take a classic example. Fast food restaurants such as KFC and Pizza Hut are designed to cater to the masses by providing food at a lower price (Global Issues, 2016). This way they are taking advantage of the economy of scale, having more beneficial prices from suppliers because of the sheer quantity that they demand.
At the same time, they create a competitive landscape putting in motion economic forces, such as the purchasing decision. Everybody’s got to eat. But what happens on the other side? Intensive breeding of livestock and poultry meant just for these restaurants. More animals means more space to house them, things to feed them, all of which can lead to deforestation, land degradation, contamination of water resources, etc.
If we were to transform this into an equation, it would look something like this:
…for every pound of red meat or poultry or egg or milk produced equals the loss of five pounds of irreplaceable top soil from farm fields.
Another equation:
…for meat breeding one animal per day requires 190 gallons of water which equals ten times the amount of water that a normal Indian family requires per day. The sad truth is that animal farms use nearly 40 percent of the world’s total grain production (ibid.).
But this is food you might say!
We buy food, folks! It’s still on the retail side!
What does that have to do with the Future?
If we imagine the future we tend to always have these shiny, sleek qualities in mind. Everything is high-tech and functional and ordered and efficient. But this future will happen only for some people. For others, it will be messy, with masses of lands sliding away due to deforestation, limited resources of water, leading to relocation, poverty and famine. And suddenly you find yourself in Elysium with Matt Damon fighting societal inequality.
In an ideal future, all people would have access to the same resources, have the same possibilities, the same potential. Now we are digging at the roots of Marxist communism. Every way we turn a turn the wheel there seems to be a danger waiting for us.
Let’s stop the wheel. Let’s think about what we are doing and most importantly WHY we are doing! The retail industry is a powerhouse. Let it be a force for good.
If retails would think WHY they are supplying or enticing demand when it would not be necessary, their answers would be connected to the financial aspect. But future retailers…what would they say? Would they even exist? There is a precarious balance between the economical rise and downfall, sustainable development and environmental collapse. They’re all specks on a wheel and they’re turning our world.
Consumerism pushes this wheel but it can also break it. Would it be difficult to temper our needs and wants? We want so much more than any human wanted in the history of this planet and we are surpassing nature’s rhythms to supply us. What happens when demand exceeds supply? Scarcity. Economy 101. Unfortunately, this scarcity involves our home at a planetary level. And for now, it’s our only possible home.
What happens when the curtain falls?
Nobody knows what will happen, but we know for sure that the curtain must not fall. The rising awareness of consumer’s action over the environment shapes the new economic dynamics. Personally, I will pay attention to what I am buying and why. If I do need it or if 50% of the time I am just indulging myself. Because if it is the latter than I must change. Mother nature deserves more consideration. And if I can change just one person’s mind about it and that individual would change another person’s mind…well…with the risk of sounding cliché…we would change the world. So, let’s spin the wheel of fate!
This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.
Understanding how people think, and why, can directly influence what they do and how they react to things. As a result of this, it’s important for businesses to learn to understand what influences customer behaviour, why, and how they can tap into it.
The Mechanics of Human Brain
An obsessive-compulsive lizard, an emotional monkey and a design-oriented rookie enter a clothing store during a winter storm.
The lizard says: ‘A warm coat.’
The monkey says ‘No. A fluffy coat.’
The rookie says: ‘A long sleeved, doubled layered coat, with a hoodie.’
The employee says: ‘We have all these features in this coat!’
The lizard, monkey, and rookie say: ‘BINGO!’
I bet you have no clue what I am talking about! It sounds like a really bad joke. Bear with me.
In previous articles, I discussed how I envisioned the retail industry to look like in the near and not so near future. In all these entries, the one challenge I always took into account was the fact that our environment was in constant motion, evolving.
Somehow, when we speak about the environment we always associate it with the external surroundings. However, we have another environment, a micro one, that changes at a very slow pace. But when it changes, humankind can only experience one thing… revolution.
I am talking about the human brain. It represents only 2% (Live Science, 2016) of our body mass, but consumes about 20% of our energy (Neuroscience Marketing, 2015). It is arguably the most complex system on Earth and the reason we are alive. So, how does it work? The brain is actually divided into three distinct parts:
- The first part or the outer layer is called the neocortex (the new brain) or the ‘rookie’ in our case. It is in charge of designing our body according to the prototype code provided by our DNA. It starts from a common structure – after all, at conception all complex living creatures first look like a fish embryo (yes, even humans) – and then it adds specific functionalities (opposable thumbs, anyone?).
- The second one is called the mammalian brain (the visceral brain) or the ‘monkey’. It is in charge of our basic functions such as thirst, hunger and regulates our emotional behaviour. It first developed in mammals around 150 million years ago, hence the name.
- The third one and the core of our brain is the reptilian brain (R-complex in humans) or the ‘lizard’. It strongly resembles the brain structure of reptiles and it’s in charge of keeping us alive. It keeps us breathing, regulates our body temperature and controls our aggressive behaviour (flight or fight reflex) (Brain and Behaviour, 2017).
So, let’s try this again:
A customer enters a clothing store during a winter storm.
His survival brain says: ‘A warm coat.’
His emotional brain says ‘No. A fluffy coat.’
His higher-function brain says: ‘A long sleeved, doubled layered coat, with a hoodie.’
The employee says: ‘We have all these features in this coat!’
The customer says: ‘BINGO!’
Neuromarketing
Why did I go through the trouble of explaining that? It’s something to do with neuromarketing.
Neuromarketing is the point where human brain science meets marketing. If marketers tap into the secrets of human behaviour, which are regulated by the mechanics of the brain, new and wondrous things happen (Neuromarketing World Forum, 2016).
All this neuromarketing hype has brought to my attention that we are trying to find any kind of explanation of how customers behave. That includes the underlying pattern, and how to mimic the desired traits to trigger the purchasing action. So obviously, we have to look at who is in charge in our heads right now and who will take control in the future according to human evolution. Many specialists focus on the ‘lizard’. Why? Because the ‘lizard’ makes the vital decisions and we want our products and services to be vital for customers. And as the ‘lizard’ communicates the best through visual receptors, we bombard people with well-designed adds and splashes of colours to attract attention and create visual stimuli.
Of course, the ‘monkey’ and the ‘rookie’ also have their parts to play. Whatever we buy must serve a purpose (outside our own survival) and must encompass the necessary traits to fulfil this purpose – for business, for pleasure, for family, for work, etc.
Now, the ‘lizard’ is here to stay. Therefore, we must attract its attention first and foremost. That is the role of marketing. However, the purchasing decision is filtered through all three brains and I must say, the ‘rookie’ is in charge of this one. Let me make it visual for you.
When customers enter a store, and see the available selection of products – most of them would be a warm coat. So, if you have a warm coat for $50 and one for $500, the ‘lizard’ says: ‘Well, I am satisfied. What do you want monkey?’. Now, as we are such complex creatures we do seek the fulfilment of our emotional desires. If the coat is fluffy and offers comfort through its texture, the monkey will want it! But is this enough to buy it? What if both are warm and fluffy? Then the ‘rookie’ intervenes: ‘I have to pay bills, book a ticket for my holidays, buy a present for my mom, pay my school…”. (Honestly, at this point, my ‘monkey’ would say: ‘But it’s soooo fluffy!’ And it would have plausible chances of winning). It is quite simple.
The ‘lizard’ sees it.
The ‘monkey’ wants it.
The ‘rookie’ chooses it.
The Future of Customer Behaviour
The future retail industry must have a nice chit-chat with our ‘rookie’ brains and design their in-store processes to make this decision-making mechanism as easy as possible.
The hard part is already done. From all the multiple retailers offering the same range of products the customer entered in your store. So right now, all you need to do is to make the features, advantages and benefits of your products obvious enough in order for the consumer brain to have no doubts about the decision he is making.
Learning the secrets of customer behaviour gives an added advantage. It provides the path to one of the most desirable traits in customer service: personalization of the experience. And it’s so easy to do! Why? Because both your employees and customers are just people with brains. A company’s perspective is usually quite rigid when it comes to the human element, as people are more than people, they are resources.
Customers are divided into segments represented by personas Employees? Not really. They are almost faceless entities that must follow clear procedures. Ultimately, the real experience is that you have a ‘lizard’ brain talking to another ‘lizard’ brain. A ‘monkey’ brain feeling as intense as the other ‘monkey’ brain. A ‘rookie’ that analyses and provides logical information just like any other ‘rookie’. Brain to brain, customer and employees could have a wonderful interaction, provided they follow the same brainwave patterns.
Cognitive retailing is the future (Economic Times, 2016). It means that you are talking to the consumer on a higher level and not responding just to his basic needs. I think customers will appreciate that. To be able to do that you would need the insights that Big Data gathering can provide you but the funnel through which it has to go would still be human in origin for a long time to come. At the same time, this is what makes humans irreplaceable in the service context. Machines would not have the advantage of knowing how to engage the brain of customers. At the very least you would have a very distressed ‘monkey’ in that case.
This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Laura Susnea. As part of our internship programs, undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Laura’s primary project focusses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.
