360 Degree Virtual Tours

Been recently looking at various capabilities of producing 'Virtual tours' of various complexity.  And in particular how it can enhance experiences.    Most of my explorations have been simple ways to interact with physical tours, to provide basic experience to anyone .... but the capabilities are quickly expanding.   We examined some as they related to shelf experiences.   Still being done today.  Here an example of advances, will see if I can try:

360-degree virtual tours are easier to make with Insta360 and Matterport ... 

The Insta360 One R is the latest camera compatible with Matterport's Capture app.  By Richard Lai, @richardlai in   Engadget

As the world continues to battle COVID-19, the likes of realtors, museums and galleries have been seeking alternative ways to serve their clients or visitors remotely. Matterport even claims that its platform helped create more than twice as many 360-degree virtual tours weekly between early March and mid-August, and it’s hoping to continue this momentum by expanding its list of compatible 360 cameras.   ... " 

Kellogg Pilots Virtual Reality Merchandising Solution

A surprising area to see this kind of implementation.     The 'lower shelf' optimal location for product goes with some very old beliefs in CPG.   But the guidelines for that were found to be mostly contextual long ago.  See my former colleague John Milby's work on Shelf virtualization, linked to in many posts below.  He combines true behavioral expertise to this kind of data.

Kellogg pilots virtual reality merchandising solution
By Rose Anthony in Retailwire  with futher expert comments.

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the bi-monthly e-zine, CPGmatters.

The Kellogg Co. last November partnered to pilot a solution that embeds eye-tracking technology in a mobile virtual reality (VR) headset to reinvent how brands and retailers gather critical consumer data at the store level.

Accenture and technology provider Qualcomm collaborated on the effort.

Conducted with the launch of Kellogg’s Pop-Tarts Bites product, the VR solution demonstrated that optimal placement for the new product was on lower shelves rather than on higher shelves, which conventional testing indicated was where consumers expected to find new products. The result was an 18 percent increase in brand sales during testing.

In a statement, Raffaella Camera, global head, innovation & market strategy, Accenture Extended Reality, said the mobile VR eye-tracking solution provided far deeper behavioral data than standard testing, which typically relies on online surveys and in-home user tests. She said, “It allows significant new insights to be captured while consumers shop by monitoring where and how they evaluate all products across an entire shelf or aisle. Ultimately, this enables product placement decisions to be made that can positively impact total brand sales, versus only single product sales.”

Among the potential benefits from the technology:.. '

More Cashier-less Stores Planned: New Shopping Data?

Amazon showing some seriousness about the test, with more locations, some word was out there to the contrary.  Now what kind of additional data will this provide to drive better shelf marketing?    These cameras are watching the entire physical selection process.  Trading privacy with convenience?  Comparison to online shopping engagement?  Linking it to virtualized shelf analysis?

Amazon plans to open as many as six more cashierless Amazon Go stores this year
New futuristic convenience stores could appear in Seattle and Los Angeles.   By Jason Del Rey @DelRey In Recode. 

Amazon’s much-heralded convenience store of the future, Amazon Go, may seem like a crazy experiment. But the company plans to open as many as six more of these storefronts this year, multiple people familiar with the company’s plans have told Recode.

Some of the new high-tech stores are likely to open in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle, where the first location is based, as well as Los Angeles, these people said. It’s not clear if Amazon will open up Go stores in any other cities this year. .... "

Full Scale Virtual Research

Former P&G Shopping Behavior scientist and colleague John Milby sends along an update of this work virtualizing shopping context for experimental understanding.  Connect with his deep expertise!

" ... Please share with your colleagues. Let me know if we can provide any additional information or support .... 

Introductory Video:   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb2emckoc84

Website:    FSVR Website  

Winning Starts At The Shelf
Cutting Edge Virtual Research

 Full Scale Virtual Research is dedicated to providing  clients with innovative, and comprehensive marketing research solutions for winning at the shelf. Our Virtual Wall's proprietary technology provides full scale, touch interactive, high quality shopping environments  to identify insightful shopper biases that are so important to Winning At The Shelf !  ... 

Best regards.    John Milby, CEO

Full Scale Virtual Research, LLC
11353 Reed Hartman Hwy, Suite 101
Cincinnati, Ohio   45241
t | 513 387-2222
c | 513 379-8355
e | jmilby@fs-vr.com   .... " 

Virtual Reality in Merchandising

In Retailwire, with a discussion.

Will virtual reality transform in-store merchandising?

hrough a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the monthly e-zine, CPGmatters.

Virtual reality (VR) simulation is arguably the most talked-about tech solution in grocery today. It aims to drive faster, smarter and more profitable decisions by enabling retailers to ideate new in-store concepts, evaluate them with test shoppers, and activate those concepts.

The technology is “a good value,” Tom Wozbut, director, category analytic and shelving hub, Kellogg Co., said in a presentation he did at the Western Michigan University 2017 Food Marketing Conference last month along with Jason Smith, VP, customer service, InContext, its VR technology provider. ..... 

Putting Digital in Perspective

 In CustomerThink: 

" ... This year, the number of smartphones, tablets and connected devices is expected to cross 7 billion – that will mean more connected devices than there are human beings on earth. With more and more people owning smart gadgets, these devices are going to have an increasingly bigger influence on our communication patterns, online habits and of course, our buying habits, and globally, organisations are trying hard to keep up with this shift by leveraging Digital Business Technology themselves. ... 

Consider what Tesco did in Korea around four years ago. In 2011, Tesco’s affiliate, Homeplus in South Korea, had to deal with a strange situation in order to meet its aspiration of market leadership: While it was a problem that Homeplus did not have enough stores as its main competitor did, the real problem though seemed to be the very lifestyle of their potential customers – given that Koreans were extremely hardworking, they just didn’t have enough time to go shopping. So even if Homeplus was to set up enough stores, it was going to be a challenge to get people to visit the store. ... 

The killer plan Homeplus came up with was to set up virtual grocery stores in strategic locations like subways and metro stations – they erected posters of products and groceries just like they were displayed at their stores – each item displayed in the poster came with a QR Code that provided product details such as pricing, etc, and could be scanned from an app on a smartphone into a virtual shopping cart. What’s more, the delivery of their checked-out items could be timed conveniently. Customers could now use their smartphones to buy grocery as they waited for their trains or whenever they found time as they commuted."

Shopping in the Virtual Aisle

Another example of virtual aisle interaction.  See my previous writing on this approach.   The laboratory approach is useful for easily setting up experiments, but it also needs the right kind of behavioral expert to drive the experiment and leverage the data.

Kroger Tries Smart Shelves in Cincinnati

(Update)
From FMIDailyLead:
Kroger tries out smart shelving in Cincinnati store

Kroger is experimenting with "smart shelf" technology in a Cincinnati-area store, installing 2,200 Edge shelves that can show digital price tags and ads. The technology, developed by Kroger, might also eventually have the ability to communicate with shoppers' smartphones, read their shopping lists and light up products when shoppers approach the shelves ... "   link to Cincinnanti Enquirer article

More on Kroger Shelf Tech, in Retailwire.  Discussion.

Previously mentioned here ...  Which mentions my related involvement.

Kroger Tests Smart Shelves

We experimented with a number of related methods, combining, visual, sensory, sensing,  locating, effecting capabilities, linked to many kinds of data and analytics.  An Internet of Grocery things.  Will this make the physical shelf and aisle like the Internet?  Is that enough to bring the two venues together?    Here just a few technology examples, video at the link.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
Bringing the ‘info-richness of the Internet to ... in-store shopping’

Imagine a trip to Kroger where your grocery list tells you where the nearest item is – and sends you an alert if you accidentally pass it by on the shelf. ... Next, you need a small item like a spice and, just as you approach the crowded rack, the shelf lights up right under the whole (not ground) coriander you’re seeking.

Finally, you need gluten-free pasta and just as you approach the shelf with all the pastas, it highlights all the choices that meet your dietary needs. ... What you’ve just imagined is not that far off. Kroger is deep into experimenting with “smart shelf” technology at a store in Cold Spring. Company officials are ramping up the project and plan to test several additional applications.

“It’s not a question of ‘if;’ it’s a question of ‘when,’ ” said Christopher Hjelm, Kroger’s chief information officer.  ... "

Idea to Prototype in One Day

Fast Prototying: We spent some time constructing means to do fast prototyping, integrating methods like CAD Cam and virtualization methods to make that happen. Package design, testing and delivery was one example.  Related is the idea of shelf virtualization, which I have written about a number of times here.  It integrates actual consumer experience with alternative designs.  Now this was never done in just one day, but the challenge is good.

Shopping with Large Scale Touch Screens

E-Bay and so called 'Magic Mirror' systems in retail.  We tested the idea extensively.  Technology has continued to improve.  See the tag shelf virtualization for related technology and applications, for both in store sales and behavioral testing.

" .... At the new Rebecca Minkoff store in San Francisco, the mirrors come alive. Walk into the fitting room with, say, a blouse and a jacket, and the dark glass lights up with a suggested handbag to match. You can browse the racks at the upscale fashion boutique or swipe through “looks” on massive touchscreens. If you see something you like, you tap in your phone number, and you’ll get a text when it’s ready to try on.

From the sharp interface design to the seemingly seamless fusion of digital connectedness to physical retail, this place feels like the brick-and-mortar store of the future. But the brains behind it come from the online world. This Rebecca Minkoff store and a partner location in New York are opening for the holidays to show off eBay’s latest tech for re-inventing in-store shopping.

Yes, that eBay. ... "      Includes video demo.

Harmonizing Physical and Virtual Stores

A PDF by SAP and Wharton:  " .... Retailers are tapping an array of digital analytical tools to understand shoppers the way merchants, a couple of generations ago, knew customers by name and buying habits. Some retailers have been slow out of the gate in adopting the new tools. But all will have to become adept at using them before long, and some models are already proving their worth, say experts at Wharton and SAP. ... "

Magic of Shelf Level Eye Contact

In Supermarket News: Shelf level eye contact can make a big difference.  It was one of the first things we attempted to accurately quantify when designing shelf arrangement.   And this is easier to study now than ever before.  See some of the work on shelf virtualization. But a generalized influence measure is still illusive.

Virtual Retail Shopping vs Shelf Research

Will we eventually be using virtual reality to shop?  Another area of examination in the innovation center.  The recent emergence of Oculus and Google Glass brings the idea to the surface again. Virtual shelves are being used to shelf test presence, but not often full presence for shopping.  Had a long conversation recently about the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality.  The former will likely prevail for now except in the most specialized areas. The picture at the right shows an example of virtual shelf research at Full Scale Virtual Research.

Compliance on the Shelf

I have recently have been looking at applications of compliance. The application to shelf spaces has been a long term interest, see the thread links below.  Retailwire discusses the obvious, that image taking is making this easier than ever, and can be used to understand the physical status of the shelf. Advanced data analysis methods can make these same images efficiently understandable to decision makers.

On Packaging Innovation

Interesting viewpoint piece on innovation in packaging in CPG.  Understanding the context and consumer behavior interacting with packaging is a key function of an innovation center.

" ... For any consumer packaged goods (CPG) company, innovative packaging can set a product apart from the competition and help ensure the success of a new product launch. But the challenge of coordinating packaging development with product launch schedules, strict retailer requirements and consumer research often stands in the way of true packaging innovation. 

Retailers have strict packaging requirements for sustainability, design, size and configuration. Fail to meet these requirements, or fail to differentiate your package from the competition, and a product is less likely to get a preferred shelf location, end cap or promotion. Worse yet, a new product with a poorly designed package may not even be carried by the retailer ... " 

Virtualization in CPG, Current and Future

In Progressive Grocer:  Good overview of virtualization in the Consumer Package Goods (CPG) industry.  Aisles, stores, shoppers and even profit landscapes can  be wholly or partially virtualized. Readers of this blog will know it has often been covered here, based on my research and direct experience, for years.   See more here.   And also the tag links below.

I particularly like the description of benefits, which is well stated.  Augmented reality is a similar approach, but most often applied to consumer uses in their own typical environments.  There are also clear interaction between the two technology areas, where not enough work has yet been done.  Are you doing things that deserve attention?  Pass them along and I will help publicize them.

Disappearing Messages

In MIT Technology Review:  The increasing use of messages that will expire, self destruct and just go away.   When I first saw evidence, I wondered how much consumer research had been done on how such techniques could be used in public spaces.  I know people that are doing shelf research where this could readily be tested.  But has it been done?  See here for more.

More Virtual Research

Had another excellent interaction with John Milby, CEO of the startup Full Scale Virtual Research,which uses some of the technology developed at Procter & Gamble and has extended it considerably to virtualize consumer research in a number of new and exciting ways.  In the picture shown here, from his latest slide show, a shopper interacts with a shelf, points at a package and is able to read the text on the package.  All with full scale, very high resolution images. Other aspects of the interaction can include how a shopper might use smartphone and tablet interaction with shelf information.  See this space for more information about their progress.

Virtual Consumer Research

A worthwhile reprise based on several comments and calls.  Virtual research is a powerful concept:

We didn’t just decide to leverage some industry standard research experience into a new approach. All of our founding partners participated in developing “the first” full scale virtual research product that truly reflected the reality that shoppers experience at the shelf. 

Our virtual research was developed to reflect the same results as physical research – tested in side by side comparisons. Additional panelist/participant research demonstrated that our virtual testing did not introduce behavioral or attitudinal differences. Research and market results are consistent....  


Saw John Milby's Full Scale Virtual Research Lab.  I received a great tour and technical discussion of work underway there.  I worked with John at our enterprise retail laboratories for years.

He is the consummate consumer research professional using years of experience to apply to brick and mortar retail, mobile environments and the interaction of retail and mobile devices.

He leverages a laboratory that displays full scale product images and shelf environments where shoppers interact with and compare products.  The data is then gathered and analytically combined with other captured behavioral information.   Certainly impressive technology, but it is more  valuable yet to apply years of consumer behavior experience to improve shopper experience and engagement.  John continues to build partnerships with many other expert practitioners in the field to further enhance these abilities.  Good work.

" ... his guiding principal was “consumers will know it when they see it; the challenge is to remove the limitations on what we can show them. Virtual packaging and shelf design is the path to our future.” ... "

Contact information at this link.