The Branded Pantry

Back in February I wrote a piece on the rapid adoption of electronic versions of books, available through the Amazon Kindle ( http://brandedpantry.com/2010/02/07/managing-change-that-has-already-happened/ ).  

For those of us embroiled in the physical store world, this kind of sea-change in consumer behavior must seem daunting.  If it doesn’t it should. Over the last thirty days Amazonhas sold 1.8 Kindle books for every 1.0 hard cover book.  Amazing.

If we think this sea-change in consumer behavior is confined to books, or computers, or gift cards, or ………we are mistaken.   There are all kinds of examples (shoes for instance) of categories being both researched and sold online that industry gurus have said would never shift online, that have indeed begun the migration.

Grocery is one of those categories that gurus claim will never have significant penetration from an online sales perspective.  Yet every year the sales of groceries online, continue to march forward both from a same-store y/y and a penetration of total sales (for traditional B&M grocers).

When I ran MyWebGrocer, we had (and still have) the best interface and series of applications in the grocery arena.  

Still, I believe there are steps to take that will significantly and radically impact the consumer reaction to this online channel.   It took the Kindle to move the book market online.  I know there is a “Kindle” waiting to move the grocery market.

RFIDWorld.ca  is predicting the extinction of the bar code and the end of waits in grocery cues because of new less expensive RFID tags.

A component of their aggressive prediction is the announcement of the adoption of tag equipped apparel (jeans mostly) by the world’s largest retailer.   After all whatever those big fellas want….

Another piece of the puzzle is a new technology born through a joint effort of the Suncheon National University and Rice University that can be directly printed onto a paper or plastic tags made of ink laced with carbon nanotubes.

Regardless of the promise of this new RFID development, I am a good deal more excited about the Advantage “Tunnel” Checkout introduced last week in a Hebron,  Kentucky Kroger store.    The objective of this multi-scanner, scale and image verification technology is to eliminate both the shortcomings in current self checkout systems caused by the potential of theft, but also the bottleneck caused by most current self checkout systems.

The Advantage Checkout offers significant plusses in terms of adaptability and control.  For retailers and consumers to benefit only the retailer need commit.  In the case of RFID tags, one of the biggest hurdles has always been that if not all suppliers tag their products, the RFID checkout promise will remain just that.

Few new companies in any industry last through their first 12 months, 90% fail.

Companies trying to bring new ideas into the CG and retail space are probably more challenged, than new companies in many other industries.  CG and Retail are notoriously slow to adopt, just ask venture capital companies. 

Companies born in 2008-2009 face a fate more daunting given the deepest, perhaps ugliest recession since early in the last century.

So, with a mixture of exhaustion, continued angst and abiding faith that the contribution of what we offer is going to be recognized, ShelfSnap  finds itself in month 21 of its existence.

With the exception of a stellar PR month in May (Progressive Grocer , Frozen & Dairy Buyer, Logistics Viewpoints and Supply Chain Digest) we have laid very low for the months of March, April, May and June…so far.

This period is what I like to call the “deep dollar conference” season.  It features the In-Store Summit, FMI, NACDS, as well as Nielsen’s, IRI’s and JDA’s user group meetings.   We attended none of these.   One of the reasons is that they are expensive and it is awfully hard for a small company to make a profitable payback from that investment.

The deeper reason is that we have been busy, very busy with some nice assignments from clients.   One of my partners pointed out that rather than continuing to market and continuing to focus on sales, we needed to devote our energies to delivering value to our clients.  Many new companies might be tempted to forget the need to return value for the faith these early clients put into new ideas.  Certainly, every CEO and investor is tempted sorely to chase the next customer.

Still, knowing that your company has delivered value, delivered important information that has never before been available and that the information delivered has generate changes that significantly improve results, is important to the company and to the people who devote every waking hour to trying to build that company.

I thank my stars for the folks who have contributed so much to the building of ShelfSnap.   We have a long way to go.  This is my fourth startup and new companies always strive for survival before they can build for success.  And we still face a tough recession; recovery seems to be more clearly evident in the District than in the aisles of the grocery store.    And we still are trying to bring new measures to an industry famous for its plodding adoption.

So tomorrow we continue the process of delivering value, and begin to step up our efforts to build that value into additional business.