Even as the holiday shopping madness finally begins to cool down, the annual NRF Big Show will revive the intensity for four days while serving as a major tone-setter for how the coming year in retail will play out. While thousands of industry representatives will be walking the Javits Center floor, hundreds of exhibitors will display their solutions and technologies to provide a preview of what’s to come in 2017.
The RTP team discusses the trends, technologies and concepts they expect to have a major impact at #NRF17 and into the coming year.
Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief: I am looking forward to hearing and seeing more about Virtual Reality (VR) in the coming year. Companies like McDonald’s, Nestlé, IKEA and Samsung have taken the lead on VR experiences in retail and I think there’s so much potential for more to come. It can be a pricey endeavor at this point, though, so hopefully as more companies embrace the strategy the prices will drop. One of the things I think is most compelling for retail companies is the captive audience aspect. When a shopper puts on a VR headset, you now have their full attention, for at least a few minutes…they are not checking email, posting photos or writing tweets during the time they’re encapsulated in your video. It’s an opportunity that is incomparable in today’s digitally connected, impatient society.
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Adam Blair, Executive Editor: There will undoubtedly be plenty of bells, whistles, and bright shiny objects at NRF 2017, as there always are at the Big Show. However, I’m hoping this coming year will bring a renewed focus on the “last mile” of delivery and fulfillment. I’m not even talking about the prospect of Amazon’s delivery by drone, since I don’t happen to own an open field near an Amazon DC. I’m talking about more basic things, like letting consumers know exactly when their package is going to arrive (and more important, when it’s running late), and communicating this information via email, text, Tweet or even old-fashioned phone call — whatever communication method the shopper has chosen. I’m talking about creating easy-to-use post-purchase feedback mechanisms that let shoppers share the good, the bad and the ugly — and that are set up to fix the problem without further hassle. These things may not be glamorous, but they have a real impact on how consumers perceive brands, and cementing that kind of loyalty is the real new frontier.
David DeZuzio, Managing Editor: It’s almost 2017 and for retail, the future is here. Augmented reality is going to be big at NRF and the rest of the year. Last NRF, I saw a first-hand AR demonstration from Cimagine and it most certainly was revelatory. I knew there was a huge potential for the technology in the retail world, but I wasn’t sure what sort of catalyzing event would bring it into the public consciousness. Enter Pokémon Go. Now, the entire world is not only familiar with AR, it is hungry for more. In fact, there is already plenty of interest in AR from some of the biggest companies. I would expect to see at least a handful of additional companies introducing AR platforms at NRF, and at least a dozen or more retailers integrating AR technology into their businesses within the next year. What will be especially interesting to see is how the participating retailers differentiate the experience and what success it yields. Trust me, it’s no fad; it’s the future.
Klaudia Tirico, Features Editor: At NRF 2017, I’m looking forward to seeing where social media and social media commerce takes the retail industry. We’ve heard some talk about the benefits of Facebook commerce and even Facebook VR, so I’m curious to see how retailers will be able to leverage these new social technologies to engage consumers. Chatbots via Facebook Messenger have also crept into the scene, with department stores like Nordstrom leveraging the technology to help customers with their holiday shopping. I see a lot of potential in social media commerce and the ability for consumers to shop for items they spot on channels such as Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook through the respective apps. I look forward to seeing how retailers plan to continue using social media as a means for e-Commerce in 2017.
Glenn Taylor, Senior Editor: Given the growing popularity of the IBM Watson platform within retail, I’ll be keeping a keen eye on the machine learning platforms put on display during NRF 2017. With retailers seeking out the secret sauce for personalized experiences, they will continue to prioritize machine learning capabilities into next year. Machine learning comes in numerous forms, such as natural language processing for searches, product recommendations and customer service applications such as chatbots — all services that surely can be improved on within the e-Commerce experience. As these technologies develop a more “real-time” analysis of the customer’s behavior, conversations can have more nuance, similar to an in-store interaction. While conversational commerce has been top of mind for retail brands for years now, most of them haven’t been able to capture the context and immediate responses that build a true one-to-one relationship with consumers.
