RLI Host, Owner & Publisher Jayne Rafter

The conference covered the shifts from transaction to the experience economy, as well as trends like edutainment, hospitality excellence, and collaboration between public and private investment to stimulate economic and community impact. For us, authenticity, as well as analytics, came through as a guiding path. Here are just a few key insights we took away from the day. 

“The smaller the world gets, it seems the bigger it gets too.”

Dimitri Lalagos, SVP American Dream (New York) 

Joining a panel alongside operators of diverse destinations in Macao, Riyadh, and Dubai, Dimitri commented that, as competitive as New York is with high retail saturation, we have to think about today’s competition on a global scale because there is so much wallet share.  

Dimitri Lalagos, SVP American Dream

Adapting to the customers’ new needs post-pandemic, leisure now represents 55-60% of the retail mix at American Dream. Dimitri advised that their job as retail developers is constantly evolving, allowing space for their retail and leisure partners to evolve too. By analysing data to accommodate partners better, “it’s about making space for them to put their best foot forward.”

“You are not talking about buildings. You are going into relationship management.”

Timothy Jones, SVP Retail Sands China

Responsible for 850 retail stores and 2.2 million square feet of retail space, Sands Shoppes Macau captured 40% of retail spend across the city in 2023. With Macau forecasted to attract 33 million visitors this year, Timothy spoke about the essential need to understand what the customer does on the property and the use of data and analytics to curate the experience. “What makes it tick are the people that visit and the people that make it work”, so he said it is about understanding that human relationship to understand how things stick together and be successful. 

 “Why can’t the high street be as dynamic as my social feed?”

Ariel Haroush, Founder & CEO OF Outform | Founder & Chairman of Future Stores

Ariel Haroush showcasing Future Stores on London’s Oxford Street

Ariel joined a panel about retail renaissance and transforming physical stores into experience-driven platforms. Riffing on earlier panels and the priority to attract the new young consumers that live in the moment, he opened with a story about his young son that perfectly captured customers of the future. Driving along, Ariel’s son asked him to change the song. Ariel answered that they were listening to the radio, but his son insisted on skipping the song again, and Ariel had to explain the concept of live radio.  

Understanding the need to grasp shoppers’ attention in milliseconds, Ariel explained his immersive retail media store concept, Future Stores, which opened on London’s Oxford Street this month. Inspired by the billboard that comes to life in Back to the Future, the stores blend media, retail and digital performance marketing with LEDs covering 400 sqm of wall and ceiling space at Oxford Street, their second location after New York. 

Designed to host brands for no more than two to three weeks, Ariel explained that it was about “conversion and curation,” turning retail into something more like your social feed. The store optimises itself with data and can change the messaging according to the colours and branding that customers respond best to. “The store itself is a living thing based on what’s happening in the data”, he said.

One of Jayne’s key takeaways was that by connecting and working together across industries and sectors, innovation thrives through a shared sense of purpose. The next big chance for the industry to connect is coming up at MAPIC. So, get in touch if you want to schedule a meeting or request a demo to see what Retail Advantage can do for your data, analytics and innovation strategy. 

Miss Excel has become a seven-figure business by energetically teaching people tech. Norton promises her clients “less time fumbling with spreadsheets & more time doing what you love.” This resonates well with the technology we designed to serve the retail and leisure industry, so we wanted to share some of her teaching tech fundamentals:

1. Creativity is crucial for any CIO

By adopting industry-specific technology, Chief Information Officers and Customer Experience Managers can ensure that the information resonates with retail teams. Access to quick and creative data visualisations that are relevant to specific roles or tasks allows people to easily digest and flexibly utilise the learnings to enhance performance.

2. Automate!

Once you have discovered reliable 1-click analysis you won’t go back. Our highly versatile reporting tools are industry leading, and provide that essential time to use data insights strategically and put your plans into action – or what Norton might call “more time doing what you love.”

3. Bite-sized training sessions

We help everyone across your retail and leisure community to be updated and engaged by tailoring our training sessions, from property managers to brand partners. Our team successfully launches Retail Advantage with digestible sessions and bite-sized tips, which move intuitively whenever you want them across your app and management platform.

We would like to hear from you, and share our experience with tools that deliver agility for people and the retail and leisure places they operate. 

Get in touch to discuss or demo Retail Advantage

Read the article on Raconteur

In order to provide the ultimate customer experience, centre managers and retailers should look at ways to enable good staff experience with tools that engage and empower them to work more fluidly.  For example, instant access to analytics tailored to a particular task can help to zone in on what’s going on, highlight problems, and show us what we can do better. This is particularly crucial now as the experiential age demands that retail teams adapt to new sales and operational capabilities in order to succeed. 

At ART, we have a unique angle on workforce engagement – our solution, Retail Advantage helps retail locations combine performance data with an online portal to deliver powerful reports and aid communications.  We’ve been working with strategic analytics in retail since 2006, and our experience shows that access to intelligence and good staff communication channels can have a significant impact on the overall workforce experience, which in turn helps to attract and retain new talent.  

Data provides an incredible opportunity for retail with reports that can be compiled with one-click and securely shared for immediate action.  Tools that facilitate collaboration and quick messaging are invaluable as time is in higher demand than ever. 

Of course reworking retail is not simply about data, it’s about the impact that sharing insights has and creating meaningful work, which is becoming increasingly important to today’s workforce, and not just for millennials.

Our experience shows that a data hub which provides clear analytics to both retailer and landlord can support what is sometimes an adversarial relationship.  The transparent sharing of information not only arms retail professionals with essential insights, it also paves the way for honest dialogue based on accurate data.

Drapers reports that dialogue, flexibility, and a willingness to trial new solutions are the key to strengthening this all-important relationship.  And as Edward Cooke, of Revo concludes: “There’s more that unites us than divides us.”Read the full Drapers article here

Our solution, Retail Advantage builds on more than a decade in retail analytics and helps businesses explore large data sets to draw the bigger picture and a faster understanding of retail performance.

It is common for businesses to invest in obtaining a lot of information, but in many cases it sits in vast data silos, gathering virtual dust. Our experience shows that new ideas and opportunities come from engaging with multiple data sources, so it is vital not only to collect, but connect the data. Consumers no longer compare their purchases simply by category, but rather measure the service they receive when shopping for jeans to say booking their Airbnb. Now, it is not only possible, but important to easily layer different data types so that you don’t leave blind spots open to disruption from competitors.

The right tools and coaching help retail teams or tenants achieve better results by facilitating the best paths of action. Property owners and brands that utilise retail intelligence can build a more transparent relationship through consistent reporting and shared access to accurate data. Once the process of effective information sharing begins, a whole range of business benefits are within reach. This enables the full story behind their customer movements and intrinsic links between spending patterns, property revenue and promotional campaigns.

Every business has its own story and its own data strategy, but it helps to partner and arm your professionals with tools that show, rather than tell.

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1.Pop-ups without products

From brands to apps, we are seeing an increasing number of players look to pop-ups in retail environments as a way of attracting customers that are not just shopping for products, but experiences.  This year will see the social and dating app Bumble continue to grow a physical presence with its Hive pop-up concept; a play on the beehive branding to offer entertainment activities and networking.  “They’ll be something no one’s seen in the space, and it won’t be a model that you’ve seen outside the space” said Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder and CEO of Bumble at this year’s TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

Fresh from the holiday, perhaps you watched Miracle on 34th Street this Christmas?  The film shows Macy’s Santa Claus serving customers by telling them where they can find the toys they’re looking for, even if that means sending them to shop elsewhere. The story showed it to be a huge success for Macy’s as people felt more aligned with the store they could trust.  Customers are increasingly shopping with their emotions instead of their wallets, which leads to our next trend…

2.The rise of cultural hubs 

Customers are looking to engage with companies outside of conventional shopping parameters, so brands are increasingly aligning themselves with cultural agendas.  Leaders are seeking diversity of thought and using their internal culture to convey brand identity.  This not only attracts customers but staff as millennials are pushing preferences for authenticity and social consciousness.

3.Data with purpose

Tools that measure change and unlock value are increasingly popular to support teams with a live view on data tailored to different roles or tasks. Fast access to data helps to develop the right tactics, decide how much to invest in each effort and how to prioritise opportunities. A tailored platform powered by real-time analytics can free up managers from day-to-day specifics, allowing them to survey the competitive landscape and effectively lead the business with purpose.

As we carve the future of retail and the spaces where we live, network and play, it will become increasingly important to measure success in new ways. Data will drive this as we innovate and experiment.

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We started MAPIC 2018 early at the International Outlet Summit, where ART Software Group director, Gareth Jordan took the stage for a panel discussion on The Connected Consumer Experience in Outlet Destinations.  The lively debate hosted by Mark Faithful, editor of Retail Property confirmed the importance of sharing information and connected working in order to satisfy the new connected customer.

Neinver’s European marketing and retail director, Sebastian Sommer commented “We need to provide a stage where guests and consumers want to be loyalty customers… This requires a lot of data sharing between outlets and retailers. We cannot underestimate how important this will be.”

There was also discussion about connections between outlet and full-price retail.  Nike’s senior director of real estate, construction and facilities EMEA, Fabien Stultz said the company was redefining its outlet store model and becoming more experience-led. “Discounts are no longer just in outlet centres,” he added.

ART’s director Gareth Jordan also commented on how changes in consumer patterns, with more focus on positive experiences are changing the way outlets and traditional retail portfolios are interacting with brands: “The gap and the difference between outlets and full-price retail is changing now. Brands that are in full-price retailing are more willing to work with shopping centres to share data. But the key is not how much you have to share – it’s what you do with it.”

Gareth elaborated on this point at the Innovation Forum on the opening day of MAPIC – showcasing ART’s data analytics and management solution Retail Advantage.

In this session, Gareth spoke about data with purpose: “Retail environments have access to more data than ever. In theory, this should be fuelling insights and informing decisions, but you have to treat it with purpose.” He expanded on the importance of connecting the right person with the right information at the right moment. 

“There has rightly been a huge push to deliver a connected customer experience. Retail Advantage expands this concept, communicating and sharing live information to create connected stores; supporting retail efforts. The aim is to help create a community where shopping centres and outlets can work together with tenants to get the best performance based on up-to-date information,” Gareth added. 

Reiterating the mood across MAPIC 2018 that tech may be transforming our reality, but it is also transforming our culture as we move into the future of connected retail.

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We have reached a point where the quantity of connected devices means the ‘connected customer’ is really just the customer again. Online to offline or O2O is all about driving customers from their screens to stores.  Food and leisure activities are naturally enticing because they invite emotions that can only be fulfilled in the real world.  Customers want to connect with brands and products in a traditional physical way too, but that does not mean leaving their digital savviness at the door. Uniting data collection from online to offline is essential in a market where customers switch between channels.

O2O is often about streamlining service, but leveraging the unique opportunity in physical spaces relies on live events and the emotional side of the buying experience. Data can yield powerful actionable insight to help achieve positive emotional responses, but it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality.

Experiences are also about quality, so decision-makers need tools to innovate and investigate which events, promotions and environments work and why.  

From sales to footfall, social media to staff commentary, weather to WiFi; O2O is about connecting and leveraging data from across the business.  Put all of the channels you have to good use and both you and your customer will benefit.

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1. Control more through your smartphone

This is not only the era for the connected customer, we are also able to control more and more of our work through our smartphones.  Do away with multiple spreadsheets that require constant attention from staff. Live and accurate data that can be accessed from your tablet or mobile gives genuine insight on your situation at a glance, allowing you to make fast, informed decisions.

2. Provide views on data designed for different roles across your business  

Our experience shows that businesses benefit by expanding access to data with views tailored to a variety of roles and users.  From summaries that can be understood at a glance, to data views that can be manipulated to extract deeper understanding –   real-time reporting becomes really beneficial when there is versatility in analysis.

3. Tailored real-time communication 

Big data, small data, internal, external, observational – information comes in many ways.  The best intelligence tools translate data into insights that suit your needs at the time of access. Our management platform Retail Advantage not only collects and verifies data, it provides a toolset for communication that instantly arms colleagues and clients to make informed decisions with confidence.

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