Understanding the aging consumer…?

As a brand’s consumer gets older, their perspective changes in all sorts of ways…the ‘simple’ aging process can make demands on a body that cannot be imagined by a younger person, until now.

To simulate what it feels like to be old, the above Mobilstrictor suit includes marbles sewn into socks, scratched goggles, straps and splints that make every move agony...after a few moments 40 year old reporter Jane Fryer complained ‘This is a bloody nightmare. My ankles ache, my hips are stiff, my feet are throbbing and my legs have gone all floppy and hopeless. I can’t lift either arm above shoulder height, my fingers are unwieldy and my sight is slightly blurred….’

The idea behind Howard’s ‘Mobilistrictor’ invention is to let able-bodied people experience what it’s like to be old.

Not to look old — but to actually feel old, with stiff joints, arthritic feet and horribly fumbly fingers that don’t work when you want them to.

Britain has an exploding elderly population, with more people over 65 than under 25. Over the next 25 years, the number of pensioners will more than double.

In fact, the figures released earlier this week show an astonishing increase in life expectancy across the generations, with babies born this year almost eight times more likely to reach 100 than one born in 1931.

And it doesn’t stop there — 23-year-olds are three times more likely to reach 100 than their grandparents, and roughly twice as likely to reach 100 as their parents.

In other words, if your brand has an aging user profile, it will become increasingly important to factor the realities of aging into actual use of the product and help your consumer in ways virtually impossible to imagine today…

Young savvy consumer for real insight?

A 10 yr old child demonstrated a series of flaws in mobile games at the latest DefCon hacker conference (!)

Going by the handle CyFi, the hacker presented her findings at the DefCon hacker conference held in Las Vegas.

CyFi discovered the bug after getting bored with the pace of farming games and seeking ways to speed them up.

As you know (!) many farm-based games force players to wait hours before they can harvest a crop grown from virtual seeds. As a result CyFi, started fiddling with the clock on her handset to see if she could produce crops more quickly….

She found that advancing the clock on a tablet or phone can, in many games, open a loophole that can be exploited.

The conference organisers now have a series of sessions aimed at a new generation of tinkerers….

A lesson for us all in tapping into the savvy consumer a little earlier, and really listening…?

End of the Shopper Receipt?

In the US,  major retailers, including Whole Foods Market, Nordstrom, Gap Inc. (which owns Old Navy and Banana Republic), Anthropologie, Patagonia, Sears and Kmart, have begun offering electronic versions of receipts, either e-mailed or uploaded to password-protected Web sites.

Retailers first considered e-receipts in the late 1990s, but the dot-com crash stopped most efforts.

In 2005, Apple introduced electronic receipts at its stylish retail stores. More mainstream retailers found the checkout system difficult to replicate and were concerned that most shoppers were not quite ready for such a technological leap.

However, with wider use of mobile phones for payments, as with Google Wallet, e-receipts will become standard.

In terms of creativity, Nordstrom are considering increasing appeal by adding a photo of the item to the receipt so that a shopper can add it to a Facebook wall

To overcome objections to use of email addresses, some retailers are uploading  purchase information to a password-protected site. Customers can search their receipts and eventually  review tallies of how much they spend on ice cream or shampoo.

Can you imagine the added plus for a Tesco to be able to link receipts and Clubcard data, and the downside for those who cannot?

Augmented reality helps KAMs to scale new heights in ‘window-shopping’….

The latest issue of Tatler, which went on sale today, features a collaboration with augmented reality developer Holition that allows readers to see how jewellery worth millions, from a dozen brands including Boodles, Cartier, Chanel, De Beers and Fabergé would look on them.

In all cases, users can virtually ‘try on’ jewellery worth £10m, without the embarrassment of having to slink away ‘to think about it’  – and the only equipment they need is a pair of scissors and a computer with a webcam.

For context, it might be worth starting with the Boucheron Jwlrymachine (above), a snip starting at £200k.

Have a really augmented weekend, from the NamNews Team!

World's first pop-up mall coming to London

Sixty  shipping containers are to be transformed into the world's first pop-up shopping mall -- set to open its doors in Shoreditch, East London.

Boxpark is going to open in October -- two months later than planned -- in a 4.7 hectare site called The Goodsyard -- a former railway yard, which has been derelict for more than 40 years.

Founder and managing director  of the venture is Roger Wade -- creator of the fashion brand  Boxfresh. He says: "The container is the ultimate in industrial design but why not use it in a retail perspective."

Built next to the new  Shoreditch High Street train station, Boxpark will see 60 customised containers lifted onto the site. Forty will made up the ground floor of the mall, and upstairs will be a further 20 units housing cafes and art galleries. The retailers will not be limited to fashion with Wade stating that they contacting "any retailer who we think are doing something a little different".

With all the flexibility of 1 or 5 year leases, and based on the US pop-up shop idea*, the venture will provide a means of allowing more innovation in retail

* US pop-up shop: Most retail stores would consider staying in business for just a few days a total failure. But a growing number of merchants are opening overnight shops that appear and disappear within the blink of an eye.

These "pop-up shops" essentially are temporary boutiques that pop-up in random locations for a couple days to a week and offer exclusive items. The quickie format originated in New York City but is rapidly spreading across the US, filling in empty spaces abandoned by out-of-business retailers. Some pop-ups are run by large retailers but a new trend is towards pop-ups fronted by small boutiques with a strong online presence. Minimal storage costs and cut-rate rents allow retailers to offer high savings, although the selection is fairly limited. Shoppers like the bargains but also appreciate the unique products on offer.

If the trend continues, it could reshape the US retail landscape, diminishing the power of commercial landlords and making it easier for large merchants to test new locations and products with little commitment. It also allows smaller companies to quickly run through new stock without the expense of storage or hiring permanent employees.

A break-through lesson for UK landlords and Local Government?

Numbers, numbers everywhere, and not a prop to think...

In unprecedented times we have unprecedented access to numbers, and some NAMs even find themselves working to three places of decimals on the wrong numbers…

However, the answer is not to ignore the numbers and revert to gut-feeling, but to find and use the numbers that ultimately drive the business.

Ego-trips excepted, we are all in business to optimise reward for risk.

This means generating a Return on Capital Employed that is a little better than others using a similar business model. Take a minimum of 15% in current times.

ROCE is in turn driven by Net Margin and Capital Turn i.e. ROCE = Return /Sales x Sales/Cap Employed

If ROCE is Greek to you……?

However, if you know ROCE backwards, then you realise that all other numbers are merely supportive…

More 

The Gobstopper, sweet niche retailing

Full-time mum-of-two, Lisa Oakes, 37, opened a traditional sweet shop in Hale, Manchester on July 5^th and is already inundated with eager young customers

Sweets in the shop are displayed in traditional glass jars and weighed out on vintage scales on top of a refurbished antique haberdashery counter.

Retro sweets are on offer including rhubarb and custards, sherbet lemons, cola cubes, liquorice, locally sourced chocolate and fudge

Slight personal disappointment at the apparent absence of bulls eyes, but still worth a visit..

Shopper engagement is revealed by the fingerprints and nose prints on the window where children have been taking an eager look inside!

All the ingredients for successful niche retailing, especially given plans to supply online .

All it needs is the application of some basic guidelines to make the idea scalable

In fact in an article called Niche Retailing: Uncovering New Retail Opportunities 

Frank Lucer suggests the following rules:

-       Catering To Customer Preferences

-       Going Deep Instead Of Going Wide

-       Leveraging Your Small Size

-       Learn from Amazon about leveraging the Long Tail

Small retailers can use this same strategy to attract customers and encourage sales. It is the essence of niche retailing. It can help independent shop owners cater to their customers' preferences and "go deep" into their product categories while leveraging their size.

As the level of competition rises in every sector, uncovering these new opportunities can make the difference between success and failure in unprecedented times.

Tesco Book publishing: All You Want To Know About Fruit

News that Tesco hopes to boost sales and consumption of fruit via a ‘non-Tesco’ book promoted this week in Tesco Superstores and Extra stores raises some interesting ideas about the future of book publishing.  

The book is written by Mark Blaylock and based on an idea by Tesco category director Nick Tatum. But although Tatum and members of his technical team are credited, the book does not bear Tesco branding or identify contributors as Tesco staff.     

This ‘non-Tesco’ livery, combined with free distribution to shoppers spending £5 on fruit, and special fixture display in the fruit section is bound to qualify the book for best-seller status, with obvious benefits for suppliers, Tesco,  shoppers and authors alike.

Suppliers in other categories should anticipate, even encourage similar treatments in their categories.

However, the real payoff for shoppers could be the extension of the idea to the commissioning of fiction works targeted at specific segments within Tesco’s 15m Clubcard population…

Think of the pleasure of curling up with a bespoke Stephen King novel, populated with like-minded folk within our income bracket, sharing our interests, health profile, age and family demographics, shopping and eating habits….scarey!