Expo Preview: Technology, Omnichannel, and the 'Internet of Things'

Walmart U.S. senior vice president of creative Andy Murray will discuss the emerging omnichannel retail environment and how to leverage the digitally enhanced path to purchase when he takes the stage at the Minneapolis Convention Center for a keynote presentation at the Shopper Marketing Conference & Expo.The mass merchant has been exploring various ways new technology can add value and efficiency to the consumer experience. “The customer responds more favorably to those more practical things that save her time, money or reduce her frustration in shopping,” Murray says. “Those are the guiding principles that help you keep it simple and clear in an omnichannel world where there are a lot of shiny objects.”Most recently, Walmart expanded its “Savings Catcher” program nationally after months of testing in select markets. The automatic price-matching program looks for purchased UPCs to appear in any competitor’s ads in that particular market. Walmart refunds any difference in the form of an electronic gift card. “It saves the customer time,” Murray says, plus “Walmart gets better understanding [of the customer], and price impressions get strengthened.”Conversely, the retailer stepped back from its “Scan & Go” pilot. A smartphone application for scanning items as shoppers place them into the cart, it was intended to speed up self-checkout. Instead, Walmart translated the learnings to offer the national electronic receipt program that tracks spending.The company also has purchased property near its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters intended for a drive-through pick-up facility for online grocery orders. The move comes after a small test in select Denver-area stores showed the service was preferred to home delivery.Murray additionally is exploring the “Internet of Things” – the growing number of everyday devices that are connected to the Internet and automatically able to exchange information over a network, and how they can inform smarter, more relevant advertising.“We haven’t yet hit the tipping point, but we’re certainly aggressively looking at the ‘Internet of Things’ and how it changes your daily life,” Murray says. He believes connected objects could help move consumers along the path to purchase and win their decision at those early “moments of truth.”“Personally I’m big into the connected-home idea and using platforms like IFTTT.”Short for “If This Then That,” San Francisco-based IFTTT lets users create scripts to connect different Web applications and connected objects through simple conditional statements, with the goal of automating processes to simplify life.Walmart is also looking at the “Internet of Things” in terms of merchandising, and has included wearable and connected-home devices among the hundreds of SKUs added in a recent reset of the electronics category. Wearables already are an established trend, while “there’s still a lot of innovation required for [connected-home devices] to scale properly. It has to get a little bit simpler to install and connect for it to be truly a broad-scale consumer option,” Murray says.

Expo Preview: Technology, Omnichannel, and the 'Internet of Things'

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