RETAIL FUTURIST SERIES:

Ryan Craver On Tech And The Traditional Retailer

What does the future of mobile shopping hold?

In a new series of interviews with retail futurists, Mobify looks to tackle

this question and to explore how technological innovation and shifting

customer expectations will affect the retail industry in 2015 and beyond.

In our first interview, we speak with Ryan Craver, former Senior Vice

President of Strategy for Hudson’s Bay Company, about the challenges

facing traditional retailers trying to adapt to a mobile world.

Ryan Craver divides retailers he’s worked with into two categories – those that let

business cases drive all of their decision making

and those that rely on business cases, but also

make a commitment to innovation, even if the

financial ROI isn’t compelling in the early days.

The independent consultant puts Hudson’s Bay

Company, where he recently served as Senior

Vice President of Strategy, in the latter category.

While at HBC, Craver saw a change in

leadership at the helm of HBC as the perfect

time for the company to forge a new

commitment to retail innovation.

@ryanmcraver

“It wasn’t particularly about trying to get ahead of

any one retailer or trying to borrow an innovation

from another industry. It was just a chance to

change the mindset and to say, ‘We’re the two

longest-operating retailers in North America and

we’re going to cherish our history and our

heritage, but we’re also going to figure out a way

to be here in the next 100 years.”

Craver helmed an initiative to pilot beacon technology in the brand’s

Hudson’s Bay Company and Lord & Taylor stores. The beacon pilot

involved five Hudson’s Bay Company stores, five Lord & Taylor stores

and three specific types of engagement – promotional, editorial and

exclusive content from in-store brands – with six to eight engagement

points per store. Craver says HBC soon learned that the success of a

specific type of engagement depended on the customer of each

brand. Promotional content was effective for Lord & Taylor, but

editorial worked better at HBC. Craver is a fan of beacons, but he

cautions brands looking to follow HBC’s lead that early results of

beacon implementation likely won’t be dramatic.

“Overall, engagement is strong, except you have

to be aware that because beacons are so new,

the numbers aren’t going to be staggering in

terms of aggregate demand. It’s still early days, so

keep playing with them, find what works and try

varying use cases. Beacons are a lot more than

just sending marketing messages.”

In addition to predicting a slow and steady growth for

beacons, Craver has some strong ideas about other

innovations and disruptions that we can expect to transform

the retail experience over the next five years and beyond.

“At some point I believe there’s going to be some sort of

consumer-distributed or developer-distributed way of using 3D

printing with textiles. Seeing what has transpired in music with

apps like SoundCloud, the consumers have become the creators.

Maybe one day you’ll go to Macy’s and they’ll be able to 3D print

basic apparel items. I think the second thing you’ll see is ways in

which retailers can bring the in-store experience onto devices and

tablets. Right now, there’s no ability to replace customers walking

into a store and being able to canvas an entire department to see

what’s showcased in an efficient manner. Scrolling through pages

and pages of products just isn’t the optimal experience, which

brings me to my final innovation. Trial is an incredibly important

step within the purchase decision. How will technologies from

companies like Oculus Rift or Microsoft’s vision of HoloLens assist

the customer in the trial phase? Magic mirrors are just the start.”

Since leaving HBC, Craver has worked with a number of

companies, both established brands and startups, to help

them build their business in the retail space. He’s not shy

about naming the retailers he thinks are tech leaders.

“Urban Outfitters does a fantastic job digitally – strong offerings in mobile, launching beacons and the use of networks like Wanelo

with ‘buy now’ buttons. Sephora does an amazing job of in-store

mobile-based payments and the use of proximity-based

marketing. Macy’s is the clear leader in inventory transparency

across their 800+ stores. Outside of retail, Starbucks and

merchants using Square registers are providing order ahead with

queueless checkout.”

For organizations that might not be quite so cutting-edge, Craver has some words of warning – times have changed and your mindset needs to catch up with them. From his work with

the historic Hudson’s Bay Company and Lord & Taylor brands,

Craver understands intimately that the operations outlook of

traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers is often at odds with the

pace of technology. It’s a discord that he believes out-of-step

retailers need to correct if they want to successfully evolve

their shopping experience to meet customer expectations now

and in the future.

“Keeping it simple is one of the biggest challenges. The number

of technology choices is overwhelming. If retailers can’t dumb it

down and figure out how to apply all of these new technologies

to the five steps of the purchase process, they’re just going to

keep running in circles. Traditional retail hasn’t changed much in

the past few decades. Traditional retail is used to weekly

promotions and products changing twice a year – once for fall

and once for spring. The world of digital moves so much faster.

There needs to be a stubbornness to improve and iterate in all

retail organizations. Updating your app 12 – 15  times a year and

updating your site’s prices 24 times a day has to be

commonplace."

Mobify powers the mobile shopping experiences of leading

global retailers such as Ann Taylor, Crocs, Superdry, Eddie

Bauer and Beyond The Rack.

To learn more about Mobify, visit our website, connect with

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