Steven Lowey of Westfield spoke at Shoptalk 2016 Tuesday in Las Vegas, introducing us to the Westfield Cloud, what he calls a connective tissue between shops and shoppers. he went on to call it a cultural shift in sharing data.
Westfield has a centre in London where they are trialling the technology live, connecting retailers and shoppers in a way never done by landlords until now.
Westfield has made an extraordinary investment in developing technology and partnering with tech companies to address knowing who is shopping in a centre, where they are, the retailers they like and retailers they may visit.
The example video shown looked futuristic – however, this is what is being trialled by Westfield in London now.
They have solved issues common in shopping centres of tracking shoppers by their phones by retrofitting technology to track and engage shoppers. While this opens considerable privacy issues for the company it does present retailers a completely fresh type of engagement with people in a centre.
Those of us in Westfield centres could have an opportunity soon enough to spend more money with the company to leverage shoppers in or near our centres in a fresh way, a smart way based on information Westfield knows about shoppers, information are unlikely to know. This is one small part of the Westfield innovation that could change shopping mall retailing in the next phase of retail innovation.
While there are privacy issues, retailers, big retailers especially, see tapping into shopper proximity and other data as key to personalising shopping experiences in ays big retailers are challenged with.
I can see great benefits in retailers working much more closely with landlords. How many of us have a landlord open to such discussion ?
Colin I think there is a big difference between local landlords and massive corporation landlords like Westfield. With the latter only rarely is it a mutually respectful and supportive relationship.
Mark, this is not a retail ‘innovation’ happening here. It’s just location tracking via smartphones.
It’s the last gasp of Westfield, trying to look innovative, for the shareholder.
If you’ve swallowed their spiel for real, you might want to divest yourself of retailing within a Westfield precinct. It’s fairy dust they’re promoting.
John I didn’t know you were at the presentation.