奢侈品牌利用新科技“了解”顧客

A tour bus is depositing 50 or so passengers on the pavement next to the grands magasins — Paris’s fabled department stores, Galeries Lafayette and Printemps. As they stream into the stores, any brand would love to know who they are and what makes them notice one product over another.

一輛旅游大巴停在巴黎傳奇的百貨商場——老佛爺百貨公司(Galeries Lafayette)和巴黎春天(Printemps)旁邊，下來了大約50名乘客。當他們魚貫走入商場，所有品牌商家都會迫切地想知道，他們是什么人?他們?yōu)槭裁醋⒁饽晨钌唐范皇瞧渌?

A new batch of French entrepreneurs is hoping to make that dream a reality for luxury houses.

一些法國企業(yè)家希望可以為奢侈品商家實現(xiàn)這一夢想。

Tech start-ups and luxury retail consultants say top brands across the luxury sector are quietly pushing to bring the advantages of the web into their retail stores. Parisian grands magasins and flagship stores on the Champs-Élysées have been testing smartphone frequency detectors and connected merchandising displays to experiment with collecting data from shoppers as soon as they approach their retail store — much like online retailers have for years used “cookies” planted in web browsers.

科技創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)和奢侈品零售顧問稱，在奢侈品行業(yè)，各大頂級品牌正悄然將互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的優(yōu)點應用到零售店中。巴黎的百貨商場，還有香榭麗舍大道上的各家旗艦店，一直在試驗智能手機頻率檢測裝置以及聯(lián)系式商品展示技術，從顧客走近商店時開始，在他們身上收集信息——就像在線零售商多年來使用植入瀏覽器的“Cookie”(小型文本文件)。

Such customer intelligence could be the key to understanding why a particular shopper gets back on the bus with a parcel from Gucci rather than Louis Vuitton, or vice versa, and gives brands an edge in a fiercely competitive luxury sector.

這類顧客信息很關鍵，有助于理解某個顧客回大巴時為什么拿著古馳(Gucci)包裝袋，而不是路易威登(Louis Vuitton)的袋子，或者相反。掌握了這類信息，品牌商家能在競爭激烈的奢侈品行業(yè)占據(jù)一個優(yōu)勢。

“A lot of brands want to break down the barriers between their digital and physical presence,” says Clémence Dehaene, co-founder of Retail & Digital 2.0, a start-up that integrates motion sensors, screens, and other high-tech elements in luxury retail displays.

“許多品牌都想打破數(shù)字業(yè)務與實體業(yè)務之間的壁壘，”Retail & Digital 2.0聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人克萊門絲•德阿納(Clémence Dehaene)表示，這家創(chuàng)業(yè)企業(yè)將動作傳感器、屏幕及其他高科技元素融入到奢侈品零售展示中。

The start-up’s interactive retail stands — which have been used for fragrances by Dior and Armani — use motion-activated screens to tell customers about the products they pick up. Motion sensors feed data about the customers’ interaction back to the brand.

該公司的交互式零售柜臺(interactive retail stand)采用動作感應屏幕，向顧客介紹他們拿到的商品，動作傳感器再將顧客與機器交互產(chǎn)生的信息反饋給商家。迪奧(Dior)和阿瑪尼(Armani)已經(jīng)采用了他們的柜臺來展示香水。

Ms Dehaene says metrics like these could revolutionise the craft of merchandising, allowing retailers to modify ineffective displays without waiting to register a drop in sales.

德阿納表示這些度量技術或許會徹底改變商品陳列技巧，零售商家不必等到銷售下滑，就能夠?qū)]有效果的陳列進行改進。

“If a brand manages to mix the efficiency of digital with the emotional aspect of a physical store then they have a real card to play,” she says.

她說：“如果一個品牌設法將數(shù)字化的效率與實體店鋪的感性一面結(jié)合起來，那他們手上就有了一張好牌。”

Another start-up, Retency, provides retailers with antennas that detect the unique frequencies of individual smartphones. The firm can use these antennas to track a customer’s movements through a retail store and even to identify them on future visits as soon as they walk through the door.

另一家創(chuàng)業(yè)型企業(yè)Retency向零售商供應能檢測智能手機獨特頻率的天線。企業(yè)可以用這些天線來追蹤顧客在零售店中的行動軌跡，甚至在他們下一次走進大門時識別他們。

One French leader in luxury leather goods recently used the technology to track all the people who passed their window display at one of Paris’s department stores. The brand did not want to be named as it could be perceived by some shoppers as intruding on their privacy.

法國某高檔皮具品牌最近就在巴黎一家百貨商場的門店采用了該技術，對所有從他們的櫥窗前經(jīng)過的人進行追蹤。該品牌不想透露自己的名稱，因為部分消費者可能會認為這侵犯了他們的隱私。

The smartphone frequency detectors enabled the brand to estimate the proportion of people who entered the department store after seeing the display, as well as how many ended up making a purchase from their brand’s point-of-sale.

利用手機頻率檢測器，該品牌可以估算看到他們的櫥窗陳列后有幾成顧客進了店，以及有多少人最終在這一銷售網(wǎng)點買了東西。

“Luxury brands have a lot of information about their clients” — both through “cookies” gathered during online shopping and information collected at the register — “but don’t make the connection [between a shopper and their customer profile] until checkout,” says Isabelle Bordry, co-founder of Retency. “It’s essential for physical retailers to have access to the same information as they would online.”

Retency聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人伊莎貝爾•博爾德里(sabelle Bordry)表示：“(通過收集顧客在線購物時產(chǎn)生的Cookie，以及他們的注冊信息)奢侈品牌能掌握客戶的大量信息。但在他們結(jié)賬前，不要在購物者和客戶檔案之間建立聯(lián)系。對于實體零售商來說，像在網(wǎng)絡上一樣獲得顧客信息是非常重要的。”

Other companies can track visitors anonymously using the unique “fingerprint” emitted by smartphones, but Ms Bordry’s retail ambitions go much further.

其他公司可以用智能手機發(fā)射的獨特“指紋”對訪客進行匿名跟蹤，但博爾德里的目標遠遠不止于此。

Retency claims it can identify the smartphones of shoppers who make a purchase by cross-referencing sales records with the data from the smartphone frequency antennas.

Retency聲稱，憑借從智能手機頻率天線獲得的數(shù)據(jù)，依據(jù)交叉參照(cross-referencing)銷售記錄，其可識別購買了某件東西的顧客的手機。

But French regulations require authorisation from customers for brands to use this “de-anonymised” data. Ms Bordry says Retency is working with stores to get this permission included in the agreements for store loyalty programmes. For customers with a loyalty card, brands could know about shoppers’ presence as soon as their smartphone is detected in any of the brand’s stores.

但根據(jù)法國監(jiān)管規(guī)定，品牌商家要獲得消費者授權才能使用這些“去匿名”數(shù)據(jù)。博爾德里表示，Retency正與一些百貨商店合作，以獲得這些商店的忠誠顧客計劃相關協(xié)議中包含的此類許可。對于持有會員卡的顧客，一旦他們的手機在一個品牌旗下任何門店被檢測到，這個品牌就能立刻得知顧客光臨了他們的店。

The technology gives brands feedback on their retail efforts, and helps them fine-tune promotions in real-time.

該技術能把營銷舉措的效果反饋給商家，并幫助他們及時調(diào)整促銷活動。

Ms Bordry says large screens in stores could soon be programmed to match shoppers’ known preferences. The screens could even adapt to the interests of first-time visitors to a store without identifying them, based on the time they spend in different departments or looking at a particular product (as tracked by Retency’s antennas). The technology will be in stores by December, she says.

博爾德里表示店鋪里的大屏幕可以被迅速編程，以符合購物者的已知偏好。根據(jù)消費者在不同區(qū)域花費的時間，或瀏覽某樣商品的時間(利用Retency天線追蹤)，屏幕甚至可以在消費者初次進店時就迎合他們的興趣，而無需識別他們。博爾德里表示該技術將于12月份投用到店鋪中。

While such tools could improve the retail experience for customers as well as brands, the reluctance of Retency’s luxury clients to be identified is telling, given that the sector depends on discretion. Clients may be uncomfortable about such aggressive use of their personal data.

雖然此類工具可以改善顧客和品牌的零售體驗，但可以感到Retency的奢侈品客戶不愿被識別出來。在這個行業(yè)關鍵要看客戶心意。客戶可能對個人信息遭到過度使用感到不舒服。

“I don’t mind when a salesperson contacts me personally from the stores where I’m a client, but that’s because I gave them my information,” says Adrienne Joseph, a customer at the LVMH-owned department store Le Bon Marché.

LVMH旗下百貨公司好商佳(Le Bon Marché)的顧客阿德里安娜•約瑟夫(Adrienne Joseph)表示：“在商店里，作為顧客，我不介意銷售人員與我直接接觸，但這是因為是我自己給了他們我的信息。”

But if a retailer were collecting data about her behaviour without her knowing it? “I would really not like that,” she says.

假如商家在她不知道的情況下收集有關她購買行為的信息呢?她說：“說真的我不喜歡那樣。”

While she has accepted that online retailers may collect a lot of information about her, she says she would miss the feeling of anonymity she has when she goes into a department store.

雖然她承認在線零售商可能會收集她的大量信息，但她表示，她會懷念逛商場時沒人認識她的感覺。

“The respect of privacy is a key aspect of the luxury business,” says George-Edouard Dias, a former L’Oréal executive whose start-up, QuantStreams, works with luxury brands on managing data and customer relationships. If customers receive too many messages from a store, or the messages become too precisely targeted, they may feel like a brand has been spying on them, he says.

歐萊雅(L’Oréal)前高管喬治-愛德華•迪亞斯(George-Edouard Dias)表示：“尊重隱私是奢侈品行業(yè)的關鍵要素。”他的創(chuàng)業(yè)型企業(yè)QuantStreams致力于與奢侈品牌合作管理數(shù)據(jù)和客戶關系。他說如果顧客收到商家發(fā)送的太多信息，或者這些信息針對性過于準確，他們可能會覺得該品牌一直在監(jiān)視他們。

Brands will also need to be careful not to misinterpret the information provided by new technologies.

各品牌還需注意不要誤讀通過新技術收集的信息。

Smartphone frequency detectors and connected displays could identify that one point in the store is a “hotspot” where traffic tends to halt. “That could be because the clients like the display, or because they are lost and confused,” says Mr Dias. “There is a lot of room for error in the interpretation.”

智能手機頻率檢測器和聯(lián)系式商品展示可以識別店中某個地點是人流駐足的“熱點”。迪亞斯表示：“這可能是因為顧客喜歡那里展示的某件商品，也可能是他們迷路了或感到困惑。在解讀上有很大的誤讀空間。”

Brands should also beware of misusing information on previous spending to divide customers into the rich and the poor, said Paul Duffour, a luxury retail consultant with the MAD Network. “The luxury business has historically understood that a small customer will grow into a big one.”

MAD Network的奢侈品零售顧問保羅•迪富爾(Paul Duffour)表示，各品牌也應注意不要憑著消費記錄，錯誤地將顧客劃分為富人和窮人。“奢侈品行業(yè)向來知道，一個小顧客可以成長為一個大客戶。”