A data-driven product model based on the concept of new retail
What is new retail?
New retail refers to the integration using modern technologies such as big data analysis or customer engagement techniques. It’s a term announced by Jack Ma, Alibaba’s founder, who tried to bring online retail experience offline.
In Taiwan, only no more than 7% of overall retail sales comes from online sales, and the its growth is declining due to market saturation, according to the department of statistics. Hence, the concept of new retail was raised to solve this problem.
Purpose
The project is to come up with a product model which can match the unused space and the retailers. This model will be using big data technologies to help the retailers understand their customer, also improve the matching model.
* some images are blurred for confidential reasons
Phase 1. User study
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First, I listed out some types of unused space and our major users, the retailers, and their current user journey. The journey was concluded from second-hand materials and brief interview.
Second, I tried to find out some potential needs and pain points, basically caused by information monopoly and lack of comprehensive-big-data-analysis, that could become a niche market for us to serve.
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Phase 2. Product requirement
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According to the user journey, I came up with a brief sketch of the product requirement to match the needs of our users. This requirement model requires a third-party technology partner and a data analysis system. For the next step, I aimed to create a more detailed product model, including how the data transfers and the interaction between our stakeholders. However, I would need some case studies for reference.
Phase 3. Case study
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To come up with a proper data-based product model that suits retailer’ needs. I did some case studies about Target, Kmart, FamilyMart and Alibaba’s “Tienmao store” for how these retail companies profited or failed from using big data analysis, as well as the recent techniques they used.
It came out that except from market positioning, a successful retail company nowadays relies on data transitioning and monitoring between customer, product and store.
Phase 4. Product model
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A product model was therefore created after the case studies. It explains how the data transitions and which technologies should be used. As we are experimenting “new retail”, this model is different from the traditional retail companies and is more like a service platform which provides data analysis for retailers. I also listed out some techniques that were already used and performed results well enough for us to apply for this product model.
* product model A
Phase 5. Technology partner
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As we are also looking for technology partners, I drew an information architecture for one of the most important functions in the product model above.
Second, I made a feature analysis table based on the architecture to help find out the most suitable technology partnership companies. Except for the feature similarity, I also took the companies’ capital, background, market position and recent financial status into consideration.
Phase 6. Product strategy
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To make a conclusion, I came up with a brief product roadmap that explains how each process will be done, including the product strategies and some creative ideas for future plans. Most of the strategies have already been accepted and have been in progress. The other innovative ideas will be taken into consideration for future ideation.