2-D Bar Code to Hit U.S. in April - Different Metrics for Different Folks (
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A slide presentation obtained by eWEEK, however, did identify Best Buy, the
Gap, Nordstrom and Target as "already engaged.”
Calls and e-mails to those retailers were not returned at press time.
Those slides said that all of those retailers—except for Gap—were being
recruited in a "joint effort with the Microsoft Retail Group."
StoreXperience has been selected as a member of a Microsoft marketing
support program that has yet to be announced, according to officials working
with StoreXperience. The vendor will have a booth at the National Retail
Federation's tradeshow within Microsoft Alley.
Other companies said to be involved in these talks are the Simon Property
Group, French telecommunications company France Telecom and Epson.
The financial return-on-investment picture is complicated. Pluche said
pricing for retailers will range widely, depending on the number of stores and
average revenue. But he will insist on the retailers paying enough "to
rule out companies that wouldn't be committed to the endeavor." He said for
retailers that are among the largest 50 in the
United
States, he'd want to receive anywhere from
$250,000 to $450,000 to participate in a trial.
The complicated part is that different companies being talked with have very
different goals for the kinds of results they want. Best Buy and other
specialty retailers, for example, are focused on delivering a strong
purchase-to-visit ratio.
According to the slide presentation, Best Buy and the other specialty
retailers intend to use the 2-D bar codes to "effectively compete with
online shopping" and to prevent the store from "becoming a simple
showroom." Whether the intent is to help their brick-and-mortar operations
lose fewer sales to their online arms, or to compete more effectively against
the online operations of other retailers is not clear.
The goals are different for brands and franchises such as Epson and the Gap.
For them, the performance metrics are average spend per visit and creating
"new upsell and cross-sell opportunities," the StoreXperience
document said. They also intend to "create competitive advantage by
transforming the customer experience."
For companies including Simon Property, Nordstrom, Target and France
Telecom, the performance metric is simply consumer adoption and usage,
along with delivering to the consumer "contextual advertisings [sic] and
promotions."
After the April rollout, the company expects to have a next-phase series of
rollouts in the fall, most likely in September, Pluche said.
Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman can be reached at eschuma@earthlink.net.
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