January 29, 2013

Quite a busy day. The highlight of the day was a meeting with our mentor, Mario of LightHaus. We had an extensive 2 hour discussion about different aspects of the solution. Our takeaway from the discussion:

Problem statement:

Brick and mortar retail stores face increasing competition from online stores as shoppers are attracted through promotions, e-coupons and better knowledge of products, prices. Customers shopping online have faster access to information about products including promotions and deals. Sites such as Amazon also provide intelligent recommendations based on user behavior. In order to compete with online stores, conventional retail stores need to provide comparable services and easy access to information to shoppers. Deals and information about products must be easily available to the retail store shopper. New forms of customer engagement that provide insights into needs, preferences and behavior of the shopper while in the store would allow retail stores to customize the shopping experience.

The ZThru value proposition for retailers:

1. Increase the basket size

2. Improve sales conversion rates

3. Improve customer shopping experience – better customer engagement

4. Customer analytics data

Value proposition for shoppers:

1. Save time

2. Save money