For one, the mailbox is answering the call for delivery of online purchases.

Amazon is now teaming up with Staples, Radio Shack, 7-Eleven and Albertsons for its Amazon Locker Service.  The physical retailers will install Amazon lockers in their stores, allowing customers to buy from Amazon and ship packages to the lockers and then pick them up later.

As we have noted in our New American Lifestyles context, individuals are increasingly moving to urban locations and these locker services, also offered by startups BufferBox and ShopRunner, may prove beneficial to those living in apartment buildings and urban environments.

For another example of the past offering a solution for modern problems, the general store is proving to be a valuable retail model in some cities.

Facing a mass exodus from urban to rural areas and a general population decline that was forcing retailers to close, residents of the German village of Barmen formed a corporation and funded the creation of a village center in 2006.  Today the 150 square meter store sells basic staples and also has an ATM machine, post office, travel center, a place to register a car or renew a driver’s license and has a doctor who comes once a week from a neighboring town.

Those who run the Barmen store have gotten so many inquiries from other towns that they have created a separate consulting firm and estimate that they have helped set up about 10 other stores, none of which are losing money.  They have another 25 stores in the works.

According to one of the Barmen consultants, the most important element of the village store is the café in the back.  While the store can’t compete with discounters on price, or with upscale supermarkets on variety, it can offer a community feel and an experience.

Simplicity (the limited inventory), Connectivity (the community of the town center) and Experience (the café) are three things that are making these general stores a success and are also three of the four items, along with Restraint, on our American Consumer Values Hierarchy.

American retailers, faced with a myriad of challenges, might want to look to Germany for some ideas.

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Yabbly  is a new community-based question and answer Website and app  which allows consumers to receive feedback on potential purchases from others who have recently been in the same situation.   A consumer can ask a question from the general community and Yabbly will then match the questioner with others who have recently made similar decisions.

This Website has the potential to be another tool in the quickly expanding consumer-shopping toolbox and as a result, brands will have to work even harder to get their message across.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3002609/buy-or-not-buy-yabbly-ask-someone-whos-been-there-bought

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Kansas museum officials have proposed spending $34 million to create the National Museum of Suburbia in Overland Park.

One of America’s quintessential (and economically successful) suburbs is going to build a museum of the suburbs.  Is America ready to put the idea of “suburbs” in a museum?  We suspect the suburb will always have a place in the fabric of the American landscape, but as we have recently written, the recent renaissance of urban and downtown areas across the U.S. makes it an interesting time to suggest the suburbs merit a position in history.

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For the past few years, we have written about the ways in which consumers have gained control over their shopping experience, and one of the results of that control is the beginning of the end of the big-box era  (see, “The Consumer in Control Goes Shopping” http://www.inferentialfocus.com/our-discipline/current-topics/).

Walmart, for one, appears to realize that, if it wants to remain a retailing power in this new environment, it will need to improve the shopping experience for its customers, both online and in the stores.

The company has built a new search engine from scratch in order to better help customers find what they are looking for. Walmart is managing its own search in-house, in a similar manner to online competitors Amazon.com and eBay, but in opposition to its conventional brick-and-mortar peers that mostly outsource their search technology. Walmart’s new semantic-search engine technology, named Polaris, includes something it once called the “Social Genome” – a way of enabling discovery using algorithms that rank results via social signals from around the web. Walmart claims the new search engine will increase by 10 to 15 percent the likelihood that customers will complete their purchase.
Walmart has also begun testing an iPhone-based self-checkout system in one of its Arkansas stores, making it the second major retailer (aside from Apple) to try such a system.

 
Over the past few years Walmart has purchased small technology companies such as Kosmix, OneRiot and Small Society and combined them to create WalMart Labs, which the company is using for digital innovation.  Walmart’s low prices will still be a draw for many consumers, but in an era where consumers also value simplicity and experience, it won’t be enough.  We expect Walmart to continue to aggressively address the digital side of the retailing experience, and for others big-box retailers to follow suit.

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If the company starts and ends with back-to-school haircuts and jean store iPads, the strategy won’t amount to much, but Johnson may be onto something. As we have recently written, consumers are now valuing experiences above all else, and if J.C. Penney is able to transform itself from a retailer to a provider of experiences, then they will be on the path to success.

What kind of experience will work is, of course, the critical question.  In the past, shopping, itelf, was the experience, but online capabilities have undermined the shopping experience and made it cumbersome…and often more expensive.  Various apps that provide “check in” can appeal to some and real-world games have had some appeal, but they are not likely to last.  Restaurants have learned that experience is not just ambience but is a focus on the food, with the biggest successful experiences coming to those restaurants that focus on the local-foods, farm-to-table model.  These feature locally grown produce from named farms and offer clientele the opportunity to visit the farms and participate in food and wine tasting related to the local-food experience.

Retailers might need to think through the restaurant example to find the kinds of experiences that physical retailers can use — selling internationally produced goods that look like those on sale everywhere else could become a market loser.

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