Tesco and Casino Group examine mobile technologies to improve customer instore shopping experience
Tesco and Casino Group examine mobile technologies to improve customer instore shopping experience
Two major European supermarkets confirmed trials to bring more mobile technologies into their stores this week at the National Retail Federation (NRF) 100th Annual Convention and Expo, held from 9 to 12 January 2011, at the Javits Convention Centre in New York.
Both the UK’s biggest retailer, Tesco, and Casino Group, which owns Casino, Monoprix and France’s largest e-commerce brand, Cdiscount.com, are using new technologies to capitalise on the growing demand for mobile access instore, to access extra information and promotions while shopping in their retail stores.
Andy Higginson, chief executive of retailing services and group strategy director for Tesco, told delegates the retailer would be putting WiFi in its stores. “People now shop seamlessly between the internet and stores. That’s going to be the single biggest change as far as consumer behavior is concerned, but that also makes it the biggest opportunity.”
Higginson cited the Tesco store locator mobile app that could “plan the optimal route through the store for your shop and save you time,” as one example where mobile access instore is becoming attractive.
Tesco later this week confirmed it would like to trial in our stores in the future, but was unable to give further details like trial dates or store locations.
Joining up the instore experience
Meanwhile, Retail Technology also learned that Casino Group is looking to further the use of its mCasino mobile app, which – like Tesco’s app – is designed to let customers scan products and add them to a shopping list, among other features.
Stephane Bout, Groupe Casino chief information officer said the French retailer had looked at extending its point-of-sale (PoS) systems to accept Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled-devices, and so enable contactless mobile payments.
“We have conducted a NFC trial in Marseille, but the main problem is at the checkout, if it’s not convenient for everyone,” Bout said to Retail Technology. “We piloted around 100 phones and 1,000 cards with NFC chips. The next step for us is to combine the scanning capability with NFC in 2012.”
But he also cautioned that progress would be measured. “Self-scanning and checkout would give fast transaction throughput, but it will have to wait for NFC chip development.”
Bout was attending NRF to discuss Casino’s extensive technology consolidation onto a SAP Retail platform.
Reach, personalisation and speed
Retail Technology also spoke to Kristin Howell, SAP Retail director of demand management solution strategy, about how the business software vendor works closely with so-called “Lighthouse” customers.
“It means we can innovate with top retailers and turn that innovation into market-leading products,” Howell added. “But their modular nature means retailers that don’t want too big of a package can start with a very small SAP footprint, in promotions for instance, with SAP PMR (Promotion Management for Retail), which we also implemented with a Lighthouse customer.”
Gerry Yeo, SAP Retail industry manager added that SAP serves retailers with products targeted at achieving business agility and insights in three areas today, singling out “reach, where anytime access and mobility play a big part in delivering that”.
Yeo added: “The second aspect is personalisation. Relevance to the customer plays a big part in personalised retail communication. And the last is speed. Executing around that PMR solution is a big part of Casino’s ability to be competitive, as part of its SAP portfolio.”
Read more about Casino Group’s SAP implementation in the upcoming January/February 2011 issue of Retail Technology magazine. Click here to find out how to more.
