October 2003
I’ve often found that telling people what tomorrow may be like is not as clear or as effective as illustrating what I mean with a vignette or story set in the future. What follows is one of the vignettes that I originally wrote for my newly published book, Who Owns Tomorrow? 7 Secrets for the Future of Business (Penguin, Toronto: 2003). Unfortunately, as I had to edit out about 40,000 words to pare the manuscript down to size, this vignette wound up on the cutting room floor. It illustrates many of my thoughts about the future of retailing, but also of the living, watching world that will surround us, and that we will take for granted.
Janice is in Toronto from Calgary for company meetings, and has decided to do some window shopping at the Toronto Eaton Centre in her second evening there. As she approaches an upscale clothing store, the store cameras scan her in the crowd, note that she’s not hurrying along but is clearly window shopping, and checks her face and physiology against a company database. The corporate parent of this store runs a chain of shops in western Canada as well as a chain under a different name in the east, but maintains a common database for all its stores. The store computer relays her biometric information to the company’s mainframe computers, which finds a match with her customer profile from the Calgary store where Janice buys many of her business clothes.
Checking her past buying patterns, the corporation’s computer system decides that she might be considering purchases for the coming winter season. It retrieves her public phone number from its database, with the intention of sending a time-sensitive text message to entice her into the store, but her computer genie blocks it, saying that Janice is not taking business messages at this time. Accordingly, the store computer looks for another way to attract her attention. Based on her known colour and pattern preferences, it selects two outfits that seem most likely to appeal to her tastes in business attire, and projects them on the three meter high, flat screen panels in the store window. These panels had been showing images of a generic woman modeling part of the store’s current stock, but now change to two models close to Janice’s measurements and colouring, but slightly slimmer and younger, and modeling the two outfits the store hopes will interest her. In fact, the flat screen displays actually rotate slightly in order to make sure Janice gets a full look at them for the longest possible period.
Unfortunately for the store, Janice happens to be looking at another store opposite. One of the flat screens is then angled so that it will reflect off the window opposite, and a bright yellow flash lights up the screen for a fraction of a second, then resolves back to the Janice-double. This trick works, as Janice turns to see what the flash was (as do several other people), but is too late to catch the flash. She does wind up looking at the two screens showing the clothing the store wants Janice to see. Every
one else glances at the display, and then goes back to what they were doing before. Janice gazes at the displays, and a camera focuses on her pupils and measures her respiration. From this, the store computer concludes that the display has caught her attention, but hasn’t convinced her that either outfits are ones she wants.
Accordingly, the display dissolves into an office scene, with the Janice-double walking elegantly through a wide corporate atrium in a different outfit, while the computer assesses her interest. This time, the computer concludes that the display has piqued her interest, so it moves to gain the sale. One screen continues to show the Janice-look-alike, while the other dissolves to show the words: ‘Free matching purse with this outfit’ and a purse appears on the virtual model’s shoulder as she turns to face the other way. The purse does not actually exist, but is similar in size, colour, fabric, and model to one Janice has bought in the past, coordinates with the business suit being displayed, and is expected to be of interest to her.
Human and computer work together for the sale
Meanwhile, one of the store’s salespeople has been alerted to Janice’s presence, briefed on Janice’s status as a preferred customer, and comes out of the store. She has apparently come out to change an exterior display, but her real motive is to engage Janice in conversation. She does this, then glances at the display, and asks if Janice would like to look at the outfit more closely. Janice agrees, and follows the saleswoman into the store.
This particular outfit is not physically present in the store, although they have a similar one available, so the saleswoman lets her try on the similar outfit, then walks Janice over to the Magic Mirror. This looks like a normal mirror but is actually another flat screen display with three panels, angled like an three-way mirror. The display now shows Janice herself, with her correct measurements, modeling the outfit as it would be if it were made up for her, against the store background. Janice turns this way and that, as she would if she were actually looking in a mirror, and the image moves with her, just as it would in a real mirror. Janice says that she’d like to see the outfit from the back. The Magic Mirror responds, showing Janice wearing the outfit, but now shown as if she were seeing herself from behind. The image moves in coordination with Janice, so that she can examine the outfit from every angle. She asks to see the suit from a distance, and the image changes again, and now shows Janice off in the distance, striding towards herself across the attractive corporate atrium so she can see the outfit as it comes closer.
Janice decides she likes the outfit – and she is entirely aware of the techniques the store has used to interest her in the suit. Her computer genie, Héloise, which is the software that animates her wearable computer, has been identifying all of the store’s tricks as they have been happening. Héloise has spotted the cameras, identified the corporate parent, traced the common ownership of the two store chains, and given Janice all of this information in brief, whispered comments. Moreover, Janice has given her permission to this chain to use these techniques with her because she has a high level of satisfaction with their offerings, and the knowledge that she will get good prices and great service from them. Moreover, she knows they will not abuse their knowledge for fear of losing her business.
Computer-to-computer bargaining
Now Héloise goes into bargaining mode. She identifies the suit designer from the cut and line of the outfit, and does online research about him. He has an exclusive arrangement with this corporation in North America, so Héloise can either source the suit in Europe, or find a competing designer. She does both, contacting the relevant suit manufacturers through their websites, providing them with Janice’s measurements, and specifying the material for this suit, along with the image of the suit that Héloise recorded as Janice examined it in the Magic Mirror, but with Janice’s face removed from the image. All of this is done anonymously with an e-mail box number rather than Janice’s name, in order to protect her privacy.
Once she has quotes from the two other sources – all of which takes about 10 seconds – Héloise provides Janice with the competing offers, displaying the information in a summary table on Janice’s contact lenses, which serve as her computer monitor, along with an image of the competing designer’s creation. The two other quotes are both lower, since there’s no store overhead for them. However, shipping costs bring the European quote up very close to the store’s price. The other designer’s quote is about $45 lower, and since both the store and the other North American manufacturer will be producing and shipping the outfit from Mexico, the shipping costs are essentially the same. Janice drops the Europeans, and tells Héloise to negotiate with the store on the basis of the competing designer, even though she doesn’t like the design as well as the one she’s seen here.
The store reminds Héloise that it is also giving Janice a free handbag with the purchase. After some back and forth, the store agrees to come to within $20 of the competing all-in price, plus give Janice the handbag, provided Janice will look at some accessories in the store to accompany the outfit. Since Héloise knows Janice would probably look at accessories anyway, she pauses to get approval from Janice. Janice considers the price differential, then decides that since she knows and trusts this company to treat her well, and since she prefers this design over the competing design, she’ll accept the higher price as being small enough to remain as one of the company’s premium customers. She knows she’ll be better treated as a repeat customer than as someone who always jumps to the lowest price, and that’s more than worth the price differential.
Payment happens off-stage
The saleswoman is informed of the agreement by the store computer, smiles, and instructs the computer to transfer the video of Janice in the suit to Héloise so Janice can view it again before it arrives at her home in Calgary. She also instructs the store computer to produce a photograph of Janice in the outfit, which lists the store name, the saleswoman’s name, and the designer’s name on the back. Then she starts bringing accessories over to Janice at the Magic Mirror so that Janice can see them with the outfit.
Janice and the saleswoman never mention price, or haggle over finances, and pay no attention to the negotiations going on in the background. They are brought into the discussions only when human judgment or approval are required. To an outsider, it appears as if Janice saw an outfit in the window of a store, walked in, tried it on (virtually), and agreed to buy it. The subtext of the conversation between computers is invisible, but has become a crucial part of every significant transaction. Moreover, Janice never pulls out any money or credit cards, and apparently just walks away from the store with the accessories she has selected without paying for them. All of the commercial aspects of the transaction are handled computer-to-computer, subject to human approval.
The outfit will be manufactured to Janice’s measurements overnight, in the fabric she has chosen, and shipped to her home the next day. The physical outfit does not exist and would never exist if no one bought it. The store’s stock is primarily to allow people to feel and smell different fabrics, and to cater to people who want to walk out of the store with their purchases. Janice could have purchased this suit at home, or even in cyberspace without entering a store, but she still likes the human interaction of shopping, and of being served as a valued customer. Her down-time in Toronto has given her the luxury of an evening free of domestic chores, which she wouldn’t have at home. Everyone comes away satisfied with the transaction – which is the hallmark of successful capitalism.
Key elements in this vignette
What’s important about this vignette is the range of changes that are sprinkled through it. There is a presumption of powerful computers being used by both buyer and seller. There is a wireless, universally accessible Internet (or its successor) with much broader bandwidth, and therefore almost instantaneous response times. There are implications about personal privacy, how and when it is violated and protected, with offstage hints of privacy protection laws. The role of salesperson has changed, becoming less transaction-focused, and more customer-focused as much of the transaction becomes a behind-the-scenes interplay between computers. The assumption of universally available information that gives Janice the ability to compare and negotiate in real-time is transformational, as is the implication of the rising importance of the on-going relationship between customer and supplier. The decline of on-site inventory in favour of just-in-time customized offerings is a significant extension of things that are already happening.
These are merely some of the themes that are explored in more detail in Who Owns Tomorrow?, but the key issue here is the strategic importance of the future. Suppose you were a present-day, large corporate retailer, transported to Janice’s world. You would be hopelessly outclassed, and would undoubtedly loose market share very quickly. Yet the world is moving in this direction, and will get there, piece by piece, faster than you may imagine. Accordingly, if you are not preparing for this kind of future, no matter what industry you work in, then you are going to be left gasping behind as your competitors, known and unknown, race ahead of you.
by futurist Richard Worzel, C.F.A.
© Copyright, IF Research, October 2003
