Amazon’s Day 1 Turns into Amazon One

 The customer is dynamic not static according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Regular readers of this blog have heard that refrain often.  Hanging in the main lobby at Amazons Seattle Headquarters is a big sign that reads Day One.  It’s the goal for the Day 1 sign to remind every employee to think as if ‘today’ is day one and you can do anything.

As it turns out that mission vision Day 1, may very well make grocery shopping, or any instore retail experience much faster and safer.  That is something that is top of mind today as the pandemic seems endless, and the cold / flu season is about to become center stage.

The new Amazon One, is a device that connects your amazon account and payment card to your palm for contactless shopping.  Ok, still wondering?  The device contains a scanner that records a user's palm 'signature' -- a unique identifier in humans. Users insert their payment card, hover their palm over the Amazon One, and after the Amazon One scans their palm, they are enrolled. The entire process is claimed to take less than a minute to complete and either an Amazon account or phone number can be used during signup.

Dilip Kumar, VP of physical retail and technology for Amazon Kumar says that once this process is complete, “all customers need to do to enter an Amazon Go store is raise their palm.” That’s right no need to take out your iPhone / smartphone and scan a QR code.

So, here is what is happening underneath.  Custom algorithms and machine learning have been implemented to build a map of our palms through the device. However, images are not stored locally; rather, Amazon says that prints are encrypted and sent to a "highly-secure area we custom-built in the cloud where we create your palm signature."

Human palms have been chosen as biometric authenticators as they require an "intentional gesture" to trigger, Amazon says, and palms are also more private as identities can't be ascertained just based on a handprint.  If you wanted, users can also remove their biometric data directly by accessing their Amazon account or via an online customer portal. 

Thinking big once again consider that Amazon could work in your store.  That’s right. Kumar continued "In most retail environments, Amazon One could become an alternate payment or loyalty card option with a device at the checkout counter next to a traditional point of sale system,". "We built Amazon One to offer [...] a quick, reliable, and secure way for people to identify themselves or authorize a transaction while moving seamlessly through their day."

Think about this Amazon One will eventually be rolled out to other stores, and in addition, the company intends to offer the technology to third-parties including Airports, Hotels, retailers, stadiums, and offices. I would not be surprised if a unit could be installed into your front door.

In Seattle two Amazon Go locations launched Amazon One on Sept. 29, shoppers will still have the option to enter the stores using the Amazon Go app, Amazon app or with associate assistance if paying in cash is preferred. How fast is your company evolving?  It just may come down to this.  If you can’t beat them join them.  Save your customer time.  Consumers are dynamic not static.  Don’t sit back and simply watch others reduce cost, improve service.  Jump in or get left behind.

Success does leave clues. One clue that time and time again continues to resurface is “the consumer is dynamic not static”.  Regular readers of this blog know that is the common refrain of Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.  Our Grocerant Guru® can help your company 253-759-7869.  

Outside the Box Partnerships Can Drive Foodservice Growth

 

Looking outside of the box for success clues is one thing that Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® does best. Restaurants, Delis, Bodega’s, Virtual Restaurants are currently all fighting for a larger share of stomach on the fastest expanding point of foodservice distribution online ordering.

At the intersection ‘public’ and private partnerships we can find a new opportunity as the city of Los Angeles is working with an ordering technology company to help restaurants boost their digital capabilities amid the coronavirus pandemic.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti on Monday announced the partnership with Ritual, a food ordering platform. Restaurants that sign up will get its Ritual ONE product free of charge through the end of the year, with no setup, subscription or processing fees. 

So, PayPal is also providing $1 million in customer discounts as part of the initiative, called Open for Business. Here is our point.  Start looking for new revenue, new business models, and new out of the box partnerships too drive incremental growth.  Others are trying to hep you.  Step up and help yourself.

In a Battle for Share of Stomach

Are you Gaining Share

Garcetti said in a statement that “Small businesses and restaurants are the backbone of our economy, and it’s our job to help them navigate the treacherous waters of COVID-19, stay afloat, and ultimately steer us toward a lasting recovery,”

Consider that Ritual ONE allows restaurants to offer online ordering through their website for dine-in, delivery or pickup with no commission. It also offers QR code ordering and loyalty programs. A regular subscription costs $49 per month per location, according to Ritual’s website.

Gen Z and Millennials are digital natives and digital channels have become more important than ever during the pandemic as dine-in business has been cut off or limited and more consumers stay close to home. In Los Angeles, indoor dining remains closed, meaning restaurants are relying on outdoor dining, takeout and delivery only. 

Ritual CEO Ray Reddy stated “It's important to Ritual to help Los Angeles businesses stay up and running while keeping everyone safe during this time,” … “We believe local businesses are what make our communities thrive, and we are here to support them as we work with Mayor Garcetti, the City of Los Angeles, and PayPal to help kick start the Los Angeles economy again.”

Restaurants can sign up now for the program and opt out at any-time with no penalty. The PayPal incentives will go into effect Nov. 2.  If you have a restaurant in LA Johnson believes you should try this new program.

The Toronto-based Ritual works with thousands of restaurants across the U.S., a spokesperson said. This is the first time the company has partnered with a city. Last week, the City of Chicago announced a similar partnership with ordering and reservations platform Tock. Through that program, restaurants and bars in areas of Chicago that are below 60% of the area median income can get Tock free for six months. 

Dining rooms are open in Chicago, though capacity is capped at 40%. Restaurants are racing to come up with ideas to continue outdoor dining as cold weather looms.  Chicago-based Tock allows restaurants to manage reservations and takeout and delivery orders. It will also allow restaurants to record customer information in case it’s needed for contact tracing purposes. The company was co-founded by restaurateur Nick Kokonas, co-owner of Alinea Restaurant Group. Have you contacted your City’s leadership to see how they can help you?  Do you need help with that? 

Tock co-founder and CTO Brian Fitzpatrcik stated “For many restaurants and bars, especially those in historically disinvested areas, technology can make all the difference,” … “Access to reservation systems during this critical time will help businesses keep pace while ensuring that they comply with regulations to keep their employees and patrons safe.” Don’t sit back and go out of business. Look for a new path forward.

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday that tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

Digital Natives Gen Z & Millennials Drive Complexity Free Foodservice

Digital natives Gen Z and Millennial consumers expect frictionless checkout as a standard not as something special.  Complexity free food retail today must include an ‘auto’ –‘digital’ payment option according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 

Regular readers of this blog know we have been touting the success of Starbucks digital payment system and the rapid customer adoption since 2015.  So, we ask what have you been doing to speed service and integrate digital payments?

As restaurant year over year customer counts continue to fall “c-store chains including Cruizers in North Carolina, Ricker's and Family Express in Indiana, and Parker's and Enmarket in Georgia, as well as convenience giant 7-Eleven Inc. are testing some type of frictionless checkout in their stores. That said they are also adding new fresh prepared meals and meal components to drive incremental business according to Johnson.

Kimberly Otocki, convenience store marketing specialist for Paytronix Systems, noted that mobile is a huge component of a consumers' day-to-day lives. On average, Americans spend 2.8 hours a day on their mobile devices, which accounts for 51 percent of their total digital media time.

 "They are spending a lot of time on their mobile devices and we see it day to day because we know when we walk down the street or our customers come into our stores, they most likely have their mobile phones out and are using them," she said.

 Mobile has become so big that the average person checks their phone 157 times a day. In addition, 90 percent of consumers use their phones inside stores while shopping.

Smartphones have changed the way we interact, the way we experience life and, because mobile devices enable consumers to get what they want in an instant, convenience views have shifted as well, Otocki said, calling it "the now factor." The numbers speak to that. For example:

·         86 percent of shoppers avoid going into stores with long lines;

·         74 percent of shoppers will shop at a competitor rather than a store with a long checkout line; and

·         41 percent of shoppers will change their minds about a purchase if there is a long checkout line. 

 "That's a lot of customers who will gladly avoid going to your store if they know they are going to be greeted with a long line or if they go in and see a long line, they will purposely avoid it," she said. "We want to make sure our line speeds are down to make sure they continue shopping with us."

This ongoing shift in consumer expectations and their definition of convenience is driving frictionless engagement.  Are you looking a customer ahead?

Looking for success clues of your own? Foodservice Solutions® specializes in outsourced food marketing and business development ideations. We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities, technology, or a new menu product segment.  Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma WA is the global leader in the Grocerant niche visit Facebook.com/Steven Johnson, Linkedin.com/in/grocerant/ or twitter.com/grocerant

Will Bitcoin’s Bet on Restaurants be the Bite or Buzz Needed to Drive Customer Counts

By now most regular readers of this blog know that chain restaurants perennial innovation leader Starbucks may soon allow / enable consumers to pay for their latte with bitcoin. Starbucks has become a food and beverage innovation powerhouse and technology focused company that drives customer engagement with relevance blending interactive technology with participatory food and beverage offerings according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

Starbucks is extending the coffee customization and personalization experience too technology and the payment process by integrating bitcoin into the list of payment options.  Recently Starbucks announced that it will work in partnership with bitcoin exchange operator Intercontinental Exchange Inc. as it forms a new company to “create an integrated platform that enables consumers and institutions to buy, sell, store and spend digital assets on a seamless global network.”

The new company entity will be, called Bakkt, it will employ Microsoft cloud-based solutions to fashion a “global ecosystem” for digital currency, according to the Starbucks press release. “As the flagship retailer, Starbucks will play a pivotal role in developing practical, trusted and regulated applications for consumers to convert their digital assets into U.S. dollars for use at Starbucks,” said Maria Smith, vice president of partnerships and payments for Starbucks,

Smith continued “As a leader in Mobile Pay to our more than 15 million Starbucks Rewards members, Starbucks is committed to innovation for expanding payment options for our customers.” Further operational details about Bakkt will be announced in coming weeks, according to Starbucks, with a planned launch of the company slated for November. So will it drive customer counts? Not today according to Johnson but it will added incremental buzz to the Starbucks brand and down the road it just might.  Starbucks is looking a customer ahead, are you?

Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

Is the Starbucks & Alibaba Partnership a Global F&B Play

Success does leave clues and when Starbucks Coffee Company and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced a deep, strategic “New Retail” partnership the team at Foodservice Solutions® took notice.  Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® stated that this partnership may be the most significant foodservice /technology partnership of 2018.

Johnson noted that both Starbucks and Alibaba are continually looking a customer ahead and that this partnership as it evolves will be the platform for growth that each of these companies is looking for it will become the new electricity that enables a seamless Starbucks Experience and transform the coffee industry in China.

This partnerships is more than delivery according to Johnson.  It is a relationship that will help Starbucks deliver coffee in China but most important it is a relationship about reciprocal technology sharing.  Alibaba Group plans to grow sales in the ‘West’ and Starbuck’s proprietary software might just the be tool to speed up that expansion according to Johnson.

Daniel Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of the Alibaba Group, believes that this partnership is again a testament to the success of our New Retail strategy. So is your company looking a customer ahead?

What is the new electricity that is driving your top line sales and bottom line profits?  Are your customer counts growing?  According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new food products in combination with new avenues of distribution all of which are the platform for the new electricity.”

Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods, urban clothing, grocerant consultants, coins /currency, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, cash-less payments, digital hand held marketing. This program has all of that.

Foodservice retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different.  That will require brands to embrace new fresh food partnerships more now than ever before according to Johnson.

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Where is your new electricity?  Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

Grubhub & Venmo Complement Millennial & GEN Z’s Path to Purchase

Foodservice Solutions® interns have used Venmo to pay restaurant bills, bar bills, rent, and utilities bills in the past. Venmo is a platform that invites sharing eases the path to payment and edifies relationships between friends.

When the team at Foodservice Solutions® read that Grubhub was going to up the enter a venture with Venmo to drive awareness with its cashless payment options for time-pressed diners, especially Millennials our team wondered aloud ‘wow what a perfect fit.’

Grubhub a leading online and mobile ordering platform thousands of restaurants has partnered with Venmo, a peer-to-peer payment app favored by younger diners. The integration allows restaurant customers to pay bills or split a virtual check using PayPal’s Venmo.

Sam Hall, chief product officer for Grubhub stated “Adding the ‘split the bill’ feature provides an additional level of convenience our diners have come to expect from us. This is a big deal because Grubhub has a portfolio of other apps, such as Eat24 and Seamless, work with more than 80,000 restaurants in 1,600 U.S. cities and London. Diners ordering from restaurants such as Burger King, Rubio’s Coastal Grill, Wienerschnitzel, Subway, Krispy Kreme and Buffalo Wild Wings can now pay using their Venmo account.

Grubhub said more than 60 percent of the company’s orders are placed on mobile devices, so the partnership with Venmo makes sense. The app also allows users to send a payment to other Venmo users via iMessage on iPhones with iOS 10 or later.

Now think about this for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2017, Venmo processed $10.4 billion in payments, an increase of 86 percent year over year. Peer-to-peer payment users are projected to grow to 126 million by 2020, from 53 million in 2014, according to Statista. Grubhub and Venmo can complement consumer’s choice of payment options at your retail foodservice operation. 

So just what is your New Electricity? Success does leave clues www.FoodserviceSolutions.us  is the global leader in grocerant niche business development.  We can help you identify, quantify and qualify additional food retail segment opportunities.  Has your company had a Grocerant ScoreCard completed a Grocerant Program Assessment, or new Grocerant niche product Ideation?  Want one?  Call 253-759-7869 Email: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us

Business Travelers, Families, and you can Grab a Ready-2-Meal at the Airport on the Run

Did you get stuck traffic, stuck in the security line, or delayed due to weather recently like I have been when at the airport?  Not to worry as if like me you have a smartphone you can order a meal, a sandwich, even desert or a treat right from your smart phone while at the airport. 

Delaware North recently announced the arrival of self-ordering kiosks at several of its airport-dining locations. The kiosks were developed in partnership with Grab, the airport e-commerce platform, offering travelers dual self-service ordering capabilities (mobile via smartphone and in-person at a kiosk) for the first time in the United States and our Grocerant Guru® Steven Johnson likes the servicet.

Think cashier free as the next step. The kiosk technology features an interface designed for quick ordering with intelligent upselling and customization components and includes point-to-point encrypted (P2PE) credit card payments, including Apple Pay, Android Pay, and other “tap-to-pay” options. Kiosks can process orders from a location’s full menu as well as grab-and-go items. Future iterations of the kiosk will have barcode scanners for an even quicker checkout experience when purchasing grab-and-go items.

Currently 18 kiosks already deployed at six airports, including: Atlanta (Grindhouse Killer Burgers, Mustard Seed, and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf); Austin (Schlotzsky’s); Buffalo (Which Wich); Denver (Schlotzsky’s); Detroit (Popeye’s) and Oklahoma City (Schlotzsky’s and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf).

Kevin Kelly, president of Delaware North’s travel division stated “This latest innovation with our partners at Grab is a step toward the future of travel and how people will be dining and shopping at the airport in the coming years.” You don’t have to have a location at an airport to understand the importance of selling fresh food fast, the power of hand held marketing, or a having one less cashier on duty. 

Are you trapped doing what you have always done and doing it the same way?  Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participation, differentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.