Literary Giant rates grocery trade journalism

                                                                                   pic by Jason Carlin

Recently discovered letters of Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot) reveal that in 1946 he considered applying to RGDATA in Dublin

“…. I see advertised in to-day’s Irish Times an editorial vacancy on the staff of the RGDATA (Retail Grocery Dairy and Allied Trades-Association) Review at £300 per annum. I think seriously of applying. Any experience of trade journalism would be so useful.”

As you might expect, the entire Namnews team have taken this very much to heart as encouragement in pursuit of their literary endeavours….

Paypal helping to exploit “new normal” of seamless shopping

Shopping is now 24×7 and it happens everywhere – not just in a store or website. The intersection of smartphones, social media, online and offline shopping has put the consumer squarely in control.

The payment services firm plans to add several new features in the coming months, including mobile payments, barcode scanning using handheld devices, store inventory lookup, virtual wallet and location-based offers.

In other words, an opportunity for retailers to engage their customers directly during every part of the shopping lifecycle –  generating demand from consumers through location-based offers, making payments accessible from any device (not just from the mobile phone), and offering more flexibility to customers even after they’ve checked out

In effect, PayPal is re-imagining money and making it work better for retailers and consumers – whatever device they are on, wherever in the world, and however they prefer to pay (whether cash, credit, or instalments), making it fun to pay…..

The company reports its new services will help drive its volume of transactions in 2012 beyond the $100bn forecast for 2011, up from $92bn in 2010.

Have a fun-payment weekend, from the Namnews Team!

When ‘Every little may not help…’

News that Sainsbury's is dropping its "try something new today" positioning after six years in favour of a "live well for less" commitment to its customers reflects both the pressures being put on its customers, and takes the company back to its roots, which is great quality food at great prices.  

However, a US study in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals a strange facet of consumer behaviour: people behave differently when they encounter companies' brands than they do when they encounter their slogans. In one example, exposure to the retailer brand name Walmart, typically associated with saving money, reduces subsequent spending, whereas exposure to the Walmart slogan, (Save money. Live better.) increases spending, In another study, consumers who were subliminally exposed to the word "slogan" wanted to spend more when exposed to a savings message and less when exposed to a sentence that encouraged luxury spending.

Fortunately retailers can rapidly change stance based upon immediate sales performance, whilst  brand owners are locked into change for at least a year..  

New emotion detector to identify a bluffing KAM?

Did you happen to notice the new security camera, the buyer playing with a thermal sensor, while sucking on a suite of algorithms, at that last business review meeting?

A new system that uses a simple video camera, a high-resolution thermal imaging sensor and a suite of algorithms can detect lies just by watching our faces as we talk, experts say.

Developed by a team from the universities of Bradford and Aberystwyth in conjunction with the UK Border Agency, the system was unveiled today at the British Science Festival in Bradford.

It builds on years of research into how we all unconsciously, involuntarily reveal our emotions in subtle changes of expression and the flow of blood to our skin.

We give our emotions away in our eye movements, dilated pupils, biting or pressing together our lips, wrinkling our noses, breathing heavily, swallowing, blinking and facial asymmetry. And these are just the visible signs seen by the camera. Even swelling blood vessels around our eyes betray us, and the thermal sensor spots them too.

However, as the stakes rise in supplier-retailer relationships, it is important for KAMs to match every technical move of the buyer with equivalent technical aids in order to ensure a fair-share outcome…

A fascinating article in the New Scientist describes experiments with a pair of hi-tech glasses that can  whisper in the KAM’s ear through a headphone attached to the glasses. It reveals when the buyer is "confused" or "disagreeing". All the while, a red light built into the specs starts blinking above the right eye warning the KAM to stop talking. It seems as though the wearer has developed an extra sense.

The glasses can send this information thanks to a built-in camera linked to software that analyses the buyer’s facial expressions. They're just one example of a number of "social X-ray specs" that are set to transform interpersonal interaction. . The camera tracks 24 "feature points" on the buyer’s face, and software analyses the myriad micro-expressions, how often they appear and for how long. It then compares that data with its bank of known expressions By sensing emotions that we would otherwise miss, these technologies can thwart disastrous social gaffes and help us understand each other better. Some companies are already wiring up their employees with the technology, to help them improve how they communicate with customers.

The real issue is whether this boost to our emotional intelligence goes too far in helping the KAM to interpret feelings the buyer might rather keep private?

Whitby Scampi Gets a Little Help From Tesco

Whitby Seafoods has signed a deal which means its wholetailed scampi will go on sale at Tesco stores around Britain.

Launched in 1985 by Graham Whittle from the assets of the Whitby Shellfish company, founded in 1963 and was one of the first firms to sell breaded scampi in the UK.

Over the last 26 years, Whittle has transformed the business into the biggest scampi supplier in the UK.

Following a high rate of sale locally, they pitched to successfully to supply Tesco nationwide.

A big step for Whitby Seafoods, but giant leaps ahead in terms of meeting Tesco KPIs and more especially the own label potential, globally (Tesco products are in 90 countries where they do not have shops…)

In effect, the supplier could either become a scampi aggregator for Tesco, or focus on the brand and develop it via all UK multiples..  ( 'If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere..')

Either way, this could simply be the end of the beginning…a lesson for all niche players?

Hi-tech price matcher will guarantee shoppers get the best deal, at last?

Sainsburys are trialling Brand Match till technology that instantly checks the prices of branded goods at other chains.

If the cost of the basket would have been cheaper elsewhere, the customer is given a voucher to the value of the difference

The technology for Sainsbury’s Brand Match covers about 12,000 items. It is being trialled at 12 Northern Ireland stores but could be extended to more than 930 premises across the UK. This will save shoppers the inconvenience of shopping around

With rival chains modifying current policies and apparently trialling similar schemes, coupled with the wide range of products being affected, this could be a price war with a difference, resulting in genuine price reductions across the bulk of a supplier’s distribution.

The retail ‘winners’ will be the more efficient companies that can afford to use their greater efficiencies to survive deep price-cuts, and have the muscle to pass some of the pain back up the pipeline…

Erotic capital and the KAM

The term ‘erotic capital’ refers to six or seven different but connected elements. It is multifaceted in that beauty, obviously, is a central element, but there are cultural variations in what determines beauty. There is also the idea of sexual attractiveness, which is not the same as beauty. Your sex appeal can have as much to do with your personality, style and sense of your femininity/masculinity.

There are also your social skills, whether you are a life-and-soul-of-the-party person and how you generally interact with other people. Your social presentation is important too, what you wear and how you wear it, as is your sexuality itself, your degree of sexual competence. But, overall, it’s important to remember that your erotic capital is as determined by your charm, charisma and social skills as much as anything else.

Scoring high on erotic capital may override in itself any deficiencies you have in economic, human and social capital. And it can have a considerable impact on a KAM’s salary too.

Have an interesting weekend, from the NamNews Team!

How shops help shoppers to choose wine

With research indicating that three-quarters of shoppers find choosing wine 'an ordeal’, and 75 per cent having a repertoire of just two wines, there appears to be real scope for needs-based merchandising of wine in the aisle.

In fact in their wine-traffic, Tesco have isolated two key groups:

-       “Tell Me” customers (47%), who are likely to be intimidated by the wine aisle, prefer to choose from a small selection of wine because it’s easier, tend to be lured by promotions and expect good availability of whatever they choose

-        “Engage Me” shoppers (53%), who are more interested in exploring, and will navigate by colour, grape and country, seeking out wines that are new or intriguing.

Tesco are currently refitting 870 Tesco wine departments to give each type of shopper their own grazing area.

-       “Tell Me” people get a range of own-label wines called Simply. They also get a neat section of three-for-£12 wines, and a “Great With” display.

-       The 'Engage Me’ shoppers get the traditional by-country layout, but with extra boxes so that different wines can be highlighted – new wines, medal-winning wines, journalist-recommended wines. Wines with a reason to buy that goes beyond price.

A retailer that takes the trouble to ask, has the wit and resource to remerchandise accordingly and can validate the result in real-time, has to grow share at the expense of more margin-orientated competitors.