Karen’s Daily Two Cents – Week of 7/25

Wednesday, July 27, 2016:

“Go narrow/go deep” is a matchmaker must-do if ignition is the name of the game. I started thinking about its application to igniting innovation inside of payments, more generally. Take Omnicommerce – another incredibly important merchant ambition and consumer expectation. But is the lack of overall progress there (we track this quarterly – and things could be better) because merchants are going too broad and too shallow – by trying to do too much? Had an interesting debate with someone on this yesterday and I think yes. Your thoughts?

Why #Omnicommerce might benefit from a healthy dose of #matchmaker principles. #Daily2CNTS – https://t.co/nodYTdS20L pic.twitter.com/HRo5t7JjuP

— Karen Webster (@karenmpd) July 27, 2016

Tuesday, July 26, 2016:

Kinda fascinated by the IBM Watson/Macy’s partnership. As a student of retail (aka someone who likes to shop) the bigger the store and the less time I have to shop, the more overwhelming it is to step foot inside. Curation used to be the job of a knowledgeable sales associate or personal shopper – but store staff turnover got in the way of delivering a consistent consumer experience which got in the way of making a visit a consumer experience, too.

Now, we have a supercomputer that can narrow the field of choices in those same big stores in real time, based on a zillion inputs that only a supercomputer can crunch. It’s that set of inputs that will make the experience more consistent regardless of what human being walking the floor. Will it be enough to get consumers in the store? How long before that is the experience that consumers can expect to get?

A #retail shift is happening. We don’t find the products, they find us. When will this be the norm? #Daily2CNTS https://t.co/nodYTdS20L

— Karen Webster (@karenmpd) July 26, 2016