The refrigerator can read your mind

...Or at least your barcodes, which more marketing experts are hoping will be an extension of your thoughts and needs. In this case, the point-of-sale moves even further into your home and automatically into your pantry.

Warren Belasco’s new book, Meals to Come looks at the future of food and cooking, noting how scholars have consider the meal-in-a pill, the thinking kitchen, and automated grocery shopping since before the 1939 World’s Fair. My favorite image is from around the 1950s, showing a gleaming metal and plastic kitchen with no actual food, mess, or cooking smells, but a space age mom pulling fully prepared trays from the automatic fridge-oven combo.

In some ways, we’re certainly closer to that image today than ever before. Prepared foods for both in-store and take out consumption have become a growth industry for supermarkets. Delivery grocery services like PeaPod and NetGrocer will even bring your fresh and prepared foods right to your door. And now, appliance manufacturers are edging up to the futurama kitchen with a refrigerator that allows you to swipe a product’s barcode directly into the appliance, creating a grocery list that can be transmitted to the store immediately. Incorporating microprocessors, touch screens, and internet communications into your kitchen means no more running out for milk at 10 pm. Imagine downloading a recipe, comparing the ingredient list against what’s in your refrigerator, and sending out a shopping order for what’s not. It is the DreamWorld of the 50s come to fruition.

Wait, wait, wait. I hate to be the Luddite in the Temple of Future Goodness, but is this really necessary? Or better? (I’m not even going to mention the international food crisis as one reason why this technology might appear a bit excessive. Okay, well, I am. But Belasco ties these things together, too: if we want the kitchen of the future, we have to create a future where access to good food remains constant for the global population and doesn’t deplete resources unevenly).

Even if we don’t end global hunger today, how far we can go with smart appliances and customized, immediate food sales? At least let’s consider whether it’s worth the effort:

1. Are new techno-smart kitchen appliances a growth market? GE, one of the oldest and the second largest appliance manufacturers in the US, just announced that it likely going to sell off its century-old but slow growth appliance line. This doesn’t mean people won’t buy stoves, refrigerators, and washing machines in the near future – but creating a whole new product line means you’d better be sure there’s enough income and desire out there for such big purchases. Right now replacing old televisions and laptops seem to be a more pressing consumer concern. Consider also that the market for new appliances is going to be energy-efficient, green and with greater recycle-ability. When manufacturers add in new circuitry, screens, and other technology, they might want to make sure they’re LEED compliant first.

2. Isn’t this a bit redundant? The goal is to move people away from doing online shopping on their computers and having it dispersed throughout the household. But what if my cell phone can do all that work for me? It’s small, I can take it everywhere I want in the house (scan the barcode on my laundry detergent, my shampoo, and my milk, all in one handy device!) Why incorporate it into a refrigerator? As one shopper told me, “the more gadgetry they stick on the microwave, the more expensive it is when it breaks. You’re usually stuck just going out and getting a new one.”

3. Fast, free delivery is often neither. Aside from the fun technology, one factor hidden in these point-of-sale-to-your-doorstep services is the difficulties and costs of delivering that milk. First, there’s the cost of gasoline. Just ask my local milkman, whose prices just went up (and yes, speaking of the 1950s, when we're in Massachusetts, we have a milk delivery service complete with the cute insulated milk box on the doorstep -- and if you want it, glass milk bottles. It’s local, organic, and we never run out). Whole Foods, which has just started its own home-delivery option, is only selling dried and canned goods at this point. While Amazon has proven the cost saving measures of virtual stores, it’s much more difficult to get people to standardize their weekly grocery purchases than their occasional book buying (think about how much you believe in the accuracy of Amazon’s “personal” recommendations based on your past purchases.)

4. Who needs this the most? Consider the people who would most likely benefit from this technology: people who are less mobile, like senior citizens and new parents, people in urban food deserts, where there are no nearby grocery stores, and others in rural or geographically less accessible sites. But these are not the consumer groups most likely to pay the premium price for these techno-savvy appliances.

So, until they get all the kinks worked out, I think we’ll put off that kitchen remodeling job a bit longer.

Tags: shopping, self-service

RetailWire asks: is the "seamless" store experience important?

There's another interesting conversation going on over at RetailWire, this time about how important it is (or will be) for retailers to provide a seamless transition between their brick-and-mortar and online properties. As RetailWire's editor George Anderson notes, "consumers can order a product online and pick it up in a store. They can order an item online at a kiosk located in a store. Today, retailers are looking for ways to integrate the virtual and brick and mortar shopping worlds to better serve consumers' needs and drive sales in the process." Of course, such integration comes at a price, and many have wondered what (if any) benefit there is to making it work.

Well, specifically they wonder about the benefit to the retailer, since the benefits to customers are obvious (better service, more options, etc.). And while some might argue that anything that benefits the customer is sure to benefit the retailer in the long run, the cost of making services like pick-up-at-the-store and product line extension kiosk networks can be large, and the logistical challenges associated with such projects are ongoing.

Even with that argument in play, though, it seems like retailers will eventually have to do whatever they can to make sure that their real and virtual presences are compatible, and ideally, completely integrated. To whit, here's the comment I left at RetailWire using Barnes & Noble (one of the companies actually doing something -- finally -- about linking their website and retail stores together):

I really like going to bookstores and trying out the merchandise before purchasing. However, if I can't find a book on the shelf, or an associate helps me to determine that it's out of stock, my choices are to either go to another store or have the book shipped (to the store or directly to me). I'm lazy, so in most cases the former isn't a viable option. As for the latter though, if the store *doesn't* have an easy way to order and ship it to me, I'll just go home and buy the item from Amazon, since either way I have to wait for it. Worse, I might just pull out my web-enabled phone and make the purchase from another vendor while I'm still in the store. Only by making access to inventory and alternative purchase processes as simple as possible does the brick-and-mortar retailer have any hope of securing that sale from me.

While I might be atypical in this regard right now (though I doubt it), I certainly won't be in the not-too-distant future.

Tags: integrated marketing, retail marketing, self-service, kiosks

Digital retailing design ideas from VMSD

VMSD (formerly VisualStore) published an article a few days ago spotlighting some of the more interesting and certainly more striking digital retailing concepts that I've seen so far. By far my favorite is that for Postbank, who really hit a home run with their clean, contemporary and very high-tech looking design (pictured left). As Sean O'Leary, VMSD's technical editor notes, "In the case of Postbank, the implementation of different types of display and interactive technologies is leveraged to create a more 'human' environment," and I'd certainly have to agree with that statement. In today's retail environment where digital solutions are often still tacked-on as an afterthought, Postbank and others have demonstrated that integrating the digital elements (which in this case are entirely functional) directly into the store design can be extremely compelling. This approach certainly beats out those who are still hanging solitary unmodified plasma screens from the rasters or tucking the odd self-service kiosk into some dark corner where nary a customer will venture.

Of course, because Postbank does rely on these kiosks to actually help process customer requests (customers can work unaided in a truly self-service fashion, or can ask the help of one of the branch's bankers and tellers who roam the floor), they have the right motivation to make sure that the devices look friendly and inviting. They're also freed from having to follow the standard format of having a queue area and teller's desks, which gives them a good deal more flexibility with the floor plan.

Bonus points for making the kiosks look like JetBlue's self check-in stations, which in my opinion still set the bar for kiosk design.

Tags: Digital retailing, Postbank, self-service

Will digitally-based customer assistance help solve store customer service woes?

That's exactly the question that the latest BrainTrust Query over at Retail Wire is trying to answer, and as usual, the participants in the discussion have some great insights to share. Using examples like Experticity's kiosk-based remote assistance platform, or the 3D avatars employed by some other self-service technology companies, Laura Davis-Taylor posits that there's a need to engage the customer at a point when she is making an active investment in learning about a product/service, which is an important part of the sales process to be sure.

The upside of such programs is that by relying on artificial intelligence and a centralized customer support staff, retailers can lower costs while improving the service experience by being able to instantly access product information, loyalty programs, etc. and tie those into the support process. Of course, the downside is that the human customer is now interacting with a kiosk, and whether there's a human or a computer on the other end of the Internet connection, it's not quite the same as speaking to somebody in-store.

While there are certainly valid arguments to be made on both sides, it seems like this technology, or something reasonably similar, will become a de-facto addition to the retail environment given the dramatic upswing of in-store self-service kiosks (for all sorts of uses), and the advent of more capable mobile devices. A few years from now, it seems like it would be more likely a customer would want to interact with a human being or really smart AI on the other end of their smartphone (a device already optimized for human interaction) rather than a self-contained kiosk. On the other hand, of course, kiosks will always be able to offer more functionality, larger screen real estate, peripherals like printers, and so on, so there's a place for them as well.

Technology aside, though, the success or failure of these services lies with their ability to connect with customers and offer them genuine value. My favorite quote from this Brain Trust survey comes from Camille P. Schuster, Ph.D., President, Global Collaborations, Inc., who suggests that, ". If the interaction doesn't really feel like talking with a "live" person it should not be presented that way. In many instances, consumers are seeking information and that source doesn't need to be in the form of a personal interaction." Both information and presentation of the information are important inside of a store, and even the most well thought-out product brochures and marketing info won't make a difference if they aren't presented in such a way that the customer will be receptive to them.

This could be the biggest challenge for companies like Experticity, whose entire business involves delivering a real-world experience inside of a real-world environment, but via an artificial, digital medium.

Tags: Experticity, self-service, in-store marketing, customer support