Try to contain your excitement because the connected fridge is finally here! This future blend of refrigeration and grocery retail was launched at this year’s CES in Las Vegas. MasterCard joined with Samsung to unveil the Groceries application for the Family Hub refrigerator, which boasts a 21.5-inch display, allowing consumers to view their fridge contents without opening the door and order replacement items with
taps and swipes.
It’s smart too, being able to learn what types of food and drink products consumers favour. In time, the capability will be added to automatically order the items consumed most regularly and bring new meaning to “out of stock”.
The fridge will also tailor product recommendations as it learns, which will bring some solace for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands who have fought for attention on supermarket shelves for so long and are now trying to understand how to bring the fight to e-commerce.
Shopper marketers must now ask the question: how do you win in grocery if your consumer is buying from their fridge? Part of that answer must be in recommendation and the other part will come through shoppable media that connects brand communication seamlessly with e-commerce. Groceries by MasterCard is on to this already and the companion app will work on smartphone, tablet or PC and enable consumers to add items to the household shopping list. It’s surely only a matter of time before we see a Groceries by MasterCard “buy now” button on CPG brand communication.
The cynics out there will be quick to suggest that it will be more than five years before the connected fridge poses a real commercial threat to traditional grocery retail models and, given the $5,000 price point for this Samsung model, they have a point.
Transforming shopping and e-commerce with virtual and augmented reality
Virtual reality (VR) applications are much cheaper to access, making them big news at CES because they promise an experience that has previously been the stuff of science fiction. Gamers will be the big winners in this space, but shoppers should expect to see more virtual reality too.
A Google Cardboard headset costs around £12 and a consumer can already enter a far more immersive experience than is provided by a holiday brochure by coupling Cardboard with Google Maps or, as Nestlé offered in its partnership with Google, the experience of touring a Brazilian coffee plantation.
VR has the opportunity to transform e-commerce, enabling a near-real experience of a product that had until now only been available in-store. But we will also see more retailers using VR in their shops to educate, inspire and sell product benefits. This will provide a reason for new customers to visit stores and – if the experience is good – it will keep them coming back.
Augmented reality (AR) is set to enhance the shopper experience, and the ModiFace Mirror shows just what can be achieved in-store. The mirror allows users to change not only their makeup but also whiten their teeth, alter their eyebrows, reverse the signs of ageing, and change eye colour while also delivering a 3D makeup tutorial. At an expected $2,000 per unit it’s not cheap, but compared to the salary of additional sales associates, it represents value.
I’m not a big fan of removing staff from the shop floor as they make the biggest difference in customer experience, but the idea of being greeted by a Segway advanced robot in aisle seven sounds like fun.
Innovations in cash management
Where retailers do need to manage cost is in cash management, and a new addition to CES this year was the Digital Money Forum. Apple, Google and Samsung all see the future as being in smartphone-based payments that deliver fast, seamless and secure transactions for consumers. More exciting is the innovation at the intersection of wearable technology and payments.
MasterCard and fintech firm Coin announced a partnership that will enable manufacturers to integrate mobile payments into pretty much anything able to accommodate an NFC chip. Fitness tracker-makers Atlas and Moov and smartwatch producer Omate have already signed up to MasterCard’s Digital Enablement
Service and I’m sure we will see many more products do so very soon.
All this talk of the future makes me feel my age and I’m beginning to think those oldies who don’t own connected fridges and still use cash will be the only people left in our stores. Help is at hand, though; the Genworth R701 Exoskeleton could
become the must-have tool to help retailers shape stores for people like me because wearing the product simulates what it feels like to be an elderly person.
It’s an important point because while CES brings us fantastic insight into technology that might shape retail in the future, we must never forget that the customers who shop our stores are real people and that true transformation in retail experience
is always grounded in human truths.
Simon Hathaway is president and global chief retail officer at Cheil
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