Fast Company: How Much Is That Ice Cream In The Window? Depends On The Season

Why fluctuating supermarket prices should be coming soon. A few years ago, driving over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I realized something had changed. In place of the decades-old, same-all-the-time fare, the toll had begun to fluctuate depending on the time of day and night. “That’s curious,” I thought. But my surprise was short-lived, as I reflected on how the price of nearly everything—stock prices, interest rates, airline seats, gasoline, gold, even chocolate—fluctuates these days. As a branding guy, I’m called in when brands tank, customers flee the stores, or consumers start removing logos from their shirts. Traveling the world 300 days a year, I’ve seen more than my share of brand and retail innovations: dynamic store designs in Korea, where every wall, lamp, and shelf changes position by the hour; luxurious supermarkets in Zurich that produce butter and sausages before your eyes; ranking-based Tokyo retailers where only products selling well—this very hour!—stay on the shelves. Our new digital universe creates fascinating—some might say scary—new opportunities for retailers. Innovations dating back to the 1950s, when the very name “supermarket” was invented, are looking like something from the Stone Age. Consider the latest innovation from Target, a retailer previously known for sometimes ponderous decision-making. Target’s new Cartwheel app offers while-you-shop discounts to users, mostly highly coveted Millennials, up to 600 promotions at any one time. The discounts download right to the shopper’s phone, allowing her to redeem them at the cash register and save them for future shopping trips. Cartwheel even offers a “leader board,” where Facebook friends can compare how much they’ve saved. The results on Cartwheel are in: Active users increase their trips to Target, and their spending, by 30%. Soon we’re likely to witness systems like these linked to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If you’re well-friended, well-followed, or widely […]