Sphere No.43 (Oct 2017)

of the online and offline shopping experience,” adds Mr Ma. TREASURE ISLAND The Skin Test product, also in the Shanghai stores, makes use of biometric data to give advice to clients. That advice is driven by data analytics. Data analytics have become a big part of customer relations in the industry, and ASW is leading in this area through the efforts of its eLab and tech teams around the world. All those aforementioned cameras, ESL, customers using AR and just plain old buying decisions generate stunning amounts of data. People often mistake the data for some kind of treasure. A better analogy would be to say it is the whole island – the treasure is the actionable insights. The map comes from a range of analytical tools. One big map maker and industrial excavator looking for treasure is ASW’s partner, Rubikloud, from Toronto, Canada. Over the next three years, their data enterprise platform, known as the Rubicore, will be deployed at the 13,500+ outlets across the retail group. It will plug into this vast data-generating machine and apply artificial intelligence to scour the data landscape for insights. It will help to amplify THE ULTIMATE SHOPPING EXPERIENCE << SPHERE #43 2017 24 encompassing headgear that creates all- around experiences, AR has a more ‘in this world’ effect. It takes what you see around you and adds to it. “Whether AR can become mainstream depends on market trends … there are a lot of opportunities with AR technology, in particular for beauty and health products,” says Mr Ma. Some of that tech is being used in ASW stores already. In a flagship store in Shanghai opened in April 2017 to mark Watsons China’s 3,000th store milestone, two intriguing services, namely “Style Me” and the “Skin Test”, have been introduced. Style Me uses AR to provide a virtual make-up service. By seeing the make-up on their faces without actually using the product, shoppers can try out a wide variety of items at a lower cost. They can work with in-store beauty specialists who can make suggestions from a seemingly endless palette of colours that can be applied to eyelids, cheekbones and lips. “The novel shopping experience – and the high flexibility offered through customisation made possible by AR technology – will help shape the future the power of direct targeting for consumer marketing campaigns, in both bricks and clicks environments. It will be a huge helping hand – driven by machine learning – for the leadership of ASW, as they design everything from in-store promotions to region-wide cross-brand initiatives. “We have been gathering a variety of physical store transaction data and online platform customer behaviour data for years. But now, with the help of more advanced devices and stronger analytics tools, we can also capture customer touchpoints in our physical stores and convert unknown store traffic into known customer interactions,” says Mandy Ng, Group Project Director, who oversees the big data analytics team. This will also feed into the logistics aspect of the business in a way that wasn’t possible before. “Regression was the way to go when we carried out promotion forecasts in the past. One issue with human logic is that it would sometimes provide inaccurate predictions if there was no track record for certain products,” Ms Ng explains. “Through sophisticated transformation of human logic to machine language, it is possible to set out assumptions in a more cost-efficient manner, bringing together the member database, customer transaction database, planogram information and more to make forecasts to improve promotional efficiencies, driving more sales.” That also means more customers getting what they want, when they want, where they want. The future of retail sees a wide range of devices watching, advising and delighting customers. These will help staff to make decisions and free them up to spend more time with customers, who will sometimes be dealing with the new technology, and sometimes just be enjoying the shopping experience. The intuition of great retailers about what people want and how to reach them has been buttressed by artificial intelligence to help make faster decisions, better decisions and even to automate decision-making. However, the ASW way has been to never lose sight of the customer – even when using better technology to keep track of them!