Survey

In order to more understand and find some solution we did a survey. Because I was used to do some in my school in France I did this one. The aim of this survey is to know why people go or not go to department stores. What is the most important reason they go there ? What is the point ?
To find the answer to this question, the survey is splits in 4 parts.

• 1st part : 

It's an introduction of the survey. What is about ? For what ? For who ? By who ? It's important to make the customer fell comfortable and ready to answer to the question. 

• 2nd part :

This part only deals with all the department stores. We think it is necessary to add this part to also touch the non-consumer people. Moreover, we can have really different opinion from, for instance, France or the Netherlands. It's not because people don't know Wiklund that their opinion don't have any important, quite the opposite, new opinions from elsewhere are welcome and will be analyzed. 

• 3rd part : 

If the answer at the last question of the 2nd part is "yes, I know Wiklund" so you can continue the survey and answer to the 3rd part. Otherwise you are guide to the last part. 

The 3rd part only concerns Wiklund, more specific questions about the store. I used different type and shape of question. Scales to help the mesure of wants or needs, question about the frequency etc... 

• 4th part : 

Finally, it's necessary to ask to the people some informations about them. The gender, the age, the income, the marital situation etc... For the final analysis it's important to have this kind of information because, besides know how many people go to Wiklund or don't even know, we'll be able to know if women of 40 yo and + give more importance to the quality or the price, or how often people who are living in Turku go to wiklund. 

~ Laura 

Tell a story...

| Tell a Story | Connect a Tribe | Lead a Movement | Make a Change |

After reading a post about tribes from another LeanInno member (reflection over Tribal Marketing) I coulden't help but reflect over my own thoughts on this matter. If you are at all interested in this subject I would recommend Seth Godin and his work. His book on Tribes is truly inspiring (and easy to read). If you for some reason can't find the time to sit down and study his work, atleast take a couple of minutes to check out his TED talk video The Tribes We Lead.

These are Seth Godins ideas I think we should lift up and really think about:

Like Pirates, tribes are spotted easily. They have their flag, their eye patches, they are a group. They found something worth changing.  For some reason all I could think about were Beliebers. Like pirates they are also dedicated to one thing, sometimes even obsessed. A belieber is also easy to spot. For Mr. Bieber this is fantastic! He didn't need the whole world to notice and love him, all he needed were a couple of (read thousands) of fans who care. They took him to the next round, and the next round, and the next round... All he really had to do was get in touch with the true Beliebers and then ride the wave from there.
Another musical breakthrough that Godin spoke of were the Beatles. "The Beatles didn't invent teenagers. They led them." All they had to do was find the group that were disconnected, and connect them!

Same goes for Bob Marley. He didn't invent the Rastafarians, but everyone knows that he is still today a leader for that group.

Questions to think about when building a Tribe or being a Tribe leader:

• Who are you upseting?
• Who are you connecting?
• Who are you leading?

Inspirational thought of the day: A leader doesn't have to have charisma, but being a leader builds charisma. You become wanted, and even more important for so many individuals today, you become missed when not around. This though requires a true commitment from the leader. I would love to be this kind of leader. What to full-hearted commit to I don't know. Though this project isn't the answer to this question I believe that these thoughts and ideas can help every team member in this course.

Janina

User Personas Conclusion

As Matti earlier explained, our group decided at this point to gather information from the other teams in the course. This way we thought that we could see the big picture while not spending too much time on working on something that has already been done. Since I had done the User Personas for my team earlier it was quite clear that I would gather information about that again.

Yes and... As a student in the tourism industry I can't help to go back to what inspires me. Though this post should be about what the other teams have found I feel the need to share Karelias example of user personas. (more info on: http://sirkkalantehdas.karelia.fi/files/User_personas.pdf). I truly believe that the tourism industry is growing every second and as every Finnish person knows, Russians are one of our main tourism groups. They spend a lot of money, and there are lots of them. Wouldent it be lovely if we could find a pullfactor that would make all the Russian tourists shop in just one store? This would truly make their sales shoot through the roof. Anyway, enough about that.

Here is my personal conclusion of the information from the User Personas tools I found from the other teams (I've shortly gathered positive and negative feedback from customers that I didn't include in my earlier User Personas post):

• The service quality is not very good. It seems that the store has a lot of workers, but few people that actually work.
• Quality and price go hand in hand. A big pull factor to the store is their quality and expensive but good brands.
• It is comfortable to shop in the store if you need a lot of different products. Example: Makeup, clothes for both men and women and electronics
• The cashiers are hard to find and as a customer you can have a hard time finding someone that can help you out.
• The store is a great place if you are out looking for gifts
• For someone with moving dissabilities the store is not planned out so well. It is also quite narrow in the store.
• Younger customers often use their smartphone to look up information.

Last but not least, if you like me can't get enough of tools and design methods, read 200 Ways to Apply Design Thinking by Robert Curedale.
Not only is the book brilliantly designed (the author himself described the book as being a "cookbook", but it also includes new and innovative ideas for design thinking. The book is really easy to read and compared to many other books I've read I can actually see myself using one of the methods mentioned in the book. Curedale has also written a book called 50 brainstorming Methods. Unfortionatelly I coulden´t find a copy of that book but I bet it's useful aswell. They are both published in 2012, and though this subject changes quite quickly I bet they are still up to date.
Ps. Apparently that same year the book 101 Design Methods was published. (What a year for design methods!).

 

Cheers!
Janina

Service Safari Conclusions

Instead of doing similar service safaris as the other groups we decided to take a look what the other teams had found out in their service safaris. Our aim was to look at the others work and afterwards focus on something the other groups didn’t mention, somehow try to find new aims and angles to focus on.

1^st floor
Makeup and, woman’s clothes and a discount area on the first floor
Young females in the makeup department, older women looking at clothes
-Messy first floor, hard to get a grip of what is where
-Bad or improvable customer service, clerks talked to each other
+Good range of products, especially makeup
+Light first and fresh first floor, could have a positive impact on customers


2^nd floor
Male clothes at the second floor
-Bad customer service, only a few clerks, they were only handling the cashier
-Not as much male as woman clothes on discount

-The cafeteria is hard to be noticed
+All the male clothes are gathered in the same place
+Café, children’s books and toys located next to each other, good for families

3^rd floor
Interior objects
+Some beautiful objects

Overall

Women +40 seem to be the majority of the customers
-Lack of salesman to ask for help or assistance
-The products are organized in a confusing way, hard to get a grip of the order
-Narrow walk pats
-Lots of places to lose track of one’s children
-The main entrance isn’t so attractive
-Nothing outside that screams “come inside”, big potential though
-Entrance from Kauppiaskatu is not quite unnoticeable
-Shelves are quite packed with stuff, can affect some customers and make the experience not so exclusive
+Nice café at the entrance
+Good store for gifts
+Music inside, more pleasant experience


//Matti

How to attract new customers ?

One of the desires Wiklund has been struggling with has been the need of NEW customers. That’s why we chose to think about different ways to attract new customers. Below is few ideas collected from the Team Finland Future Watch Report June 2014.

Social Currency marketing is sharing and promoting done by the customer or the potential customer. By sharing or promoting the company offers certain deals or discounts to the promoter in return. The more you share the more discounts you get could be a way to do it.  According to the report the social currency marketing suits brand lovers, experiential engagers and value chasers.

Something that Wiklund also should consider is making the shopping experience more virtual as the line between physical and virtual shopping experience is becoming more and more blurred all the time. For Wiklund this would mean recreating an attractive and easy virtual shop, Wiklund itself could work as a platform for delivery.

Wiklund should definitely use their central location better to attract customers. This could be done by engaging people on the market square through their big screen facing the market place, the model is called Fun-and-Games-Agement. Different games or pranks taking place on the market square could be shown on the screen creating an event feeling. This would according to the report attract experiential engagers and impulse followers.

Through the Social Enterprise Model Wiklund could try to make revenue at the same time as bringing social value to the society. Wiklund could for example try to tackle the fact that the center of Turku is dying out and try to make people care and shop more in the center of the city. They could also donate a cent or a small amount of money from each purchase to the Baltic Sea for example. There are 100’s of examples, it’s just to choose and focus on one local issue. This could attract new customers who are sharing the same feelings and concerns.

//Matti

Big questions

What different channels could be used in creating an innovation?

How to benefit from the strenghts?

How is Wiklund different?

- Department store vs others

What are the target groups?

How to find the problems?

- Customer values?

- Customer experience?

- Customer life cycle?

 -Lauri

Anttila in trouble

Hi again!

Anttila, one of the three department stores located in the center of Turku had to close its doors in september. Anttila is a part of KESKO and they have been forced to close six department stores around in Finland this far. Now they are trying to sell the Anttila department stores.

Good news for Wiklund is that they now have one less competitor in the city center, time will show if this affects Wilkund. On the other hand a disappearence of a big department store is a huge factor and it might generate cautiousness among the customers.

//Matti

Innovation vs Creativity

Good morning!

According to the book Dangerous Ideas by Alf Rehn there is a huge difference in innovation and creativity. When creativity is described as a really broad subject where your thoughts can wander from side to side innovation is described as giving realistic solutions. Creativity needs freedom and space, innovation is according to Rehn hard work and realizations of an particular ideas.
But would there be any innovations without creativity, I don't think so!

To summarize the book I chose the following quote about creativity: "The most important thing is to think different about thinking different".

//Matti

InnoCamp - Day 1

Five pictures tell more than five thousand words

-Lauri

Department store touchpoints

We created this touchpoint map which shows different ways to reach a customer. This touchpoint map is divided in three sections: 

1. Before visiting a store

2. While in store

3. After visiting a store

In each of these sections we have our own possibilities to affect to the overall customer experience and appearance. 

BEFORE:

Advertising
- Traditional Media (TV, Radio, Print)
- Online (Banners, SEO, Social Media)
- Outdoor
- Direct marketing

PR
- Web page
- Social media
- Sponsoring

Promotion
- Fairs and exhibitions
- Events


DURING

Advertising
- Stands
- Posters
- Shopping carts
- Displays
- Shelf talkers
- Announcements

Promotion
- Samples
- Tasters
- Placement

- Price
- Packaging
- Service

AFTER

Promotion
- Club membership
- News letter

PR
- Customer service
- Social media

- Packaging, bag,



/ Lauri

E-stores

E-stores in the retail business                            

Stockmann
(Mobile version) Finnish net store

-          languages only in Finnish and Swedish (not international supporting store..)

-          payment: a Stockmann member benefits more than “with out a card person” ( maybe customer find another place same price product without getting a membership card..)

-          payment ways; bill, net payment, card –their own credit card Stockmann master card ( circle is too strong.. new customers to join in.. not the easiest way to get new customers, maybe its not their permission..)

-          you can only pay in finish “normal” bankcard, which is shame..

-          creditcard is mastercard and visa also

-          you can choose different kind of deliver ways ( pick up from the store or post..)

-          trustfull website – responsibilities, SSL-sertificat

-          agreements are long limited and developed

-          customerservice –helping from the phone ( times when customer can call..)

Halens
Sweden

-          in present time.. they got “follow us on facebook, twitter, youtube, pinterest, Instagram

-          customers can say they opinions about the products. And latest post and comments seen in front page

Netsstore.com

-          SSL-system also mentioned

-          Privacy policy. You can not see nothing about this “area” if you don’t sign in or log in..

-          “contact us” is only/just email inquiry ( wondering how long customers have to wait to get the answer to their question..)

-          not so “trustfull imagination about this site. They don’t say nothing about netstore, their policy and backrounds etc..

Selfridges&Co England

 -         Voted the best department store in world. Global department store summits 2010, 2012, 2014

-       “Follow fb. twitter, pinterest (they doesn’t “spääm” every socialnetsites..

  -      Privacy and cookie policy “ Coocies make your Selfridges.com experience more enjoyable –and this page explains exactly what they are, why we use them and how they work. “

-         I think its not “waisted” that this store has been voted the best web net store several times. It gives you very much information about everything (but not in the longest and boring ways), it is easy to use, simple –but the thingking and developing is huge in this site.

 

All netstores department are pretty much the same.. like; women, home, men,, children etc. Is this some area maybe need some chance.. or something new and innovative, I don know.. I liked whwn customers can give theyr own opinion about service-product-and blaablaa In the netsite. And also some “blog or something similar like that it would be interesting..”like someone writing a diary about how you can order something, how long you wait, how was the packning and so..

 //Päivi