Greetings from Laguna Beach.  I am participating in the first Digiday Retail Summit this week and sharing key insights, conversations and learning.

Last evening was Cocktails & Conversation with Brian Kilcourse, Managing Partner at RSR Research.  Subject was “The Current State of Omni-Channel Retail”  RSR just completed a research project with retailers on the changing shopper behavior and how they plan to deal with the “reset moment” they are currently facing.  Brian says the reset moment is similar to the 80’s when bar code scanning was introduced and retailers had to change the way they operated their business.

Some key learnings:

Retailers are all built around supply chain efficiency – getting products from manufacturers to distribution to stores and to consumers in the most cost efficient manner.  The paradigm shift is  customers have now extended the path to purchase outside of the store to mobile, tablets and desktops and this disrupts the supply chain.  Creating a positive customer experience is becoming more important than supply chain efficiency which is causing significant disruption to retailers.  Brian suggests that retailer should have a c-level position whose responsibility is the customer experience.  CCEO – Chief Customer Experience Officer!

We all know that using social media as a selling platform doesn’t work, however, retailers should be using social as  a research platform.  It is a real-time customer feedback loop that will keep retailers informed about their customers and how they think and feel about their brand.  They should be monitoring the customer experience and engaging with customers to enhance their experience outside of the store.

When I get the research report, I will share the details here…

Stay tuned for more insights.

Paul