Consumer Centred-Contextualised Approach to Retail Innovation (CAPRI)

'CAPRI' aims to contribute to retail innovation by helping to fill the gap between technology development and retail successful implementations. We believe that among the main issues that slow down the process of retail innovation, there is the difficulty of predicting how certain technologies will impact the consumers' experience and, as a consequence, how the related investments will affect revenues. Indeed, even though the unrelenting diffusion of Internet connectivity and smartphones adoption is undoubtedly transforming the consumer-retailer relationship by empowering consumers' rationality, both scientific research and retail practice provide extensive evidence as to the major role played by emotions, experience and engagement on consumer's preferences, choices and even technology adoption. The retail brand, its target audience, as well as the physical and virtual contexts where both shopping and its experience take place, all have critical influence on the impact that a certain innovation strategy might have on the consumers' perceptions and, finally, sales.

Retail is context-specific and retail innovation should be informed by an in-depth contextualized knowledge of consumers. At the same time, big data and consumer analytics represent an important potential for retailers but without theories to explain the observed patterns of relationships and to inform related queries, this potential will remain unexploited. Mobile technologies provide the novel opportunity to gather and merge big data on socio-demographics, shopping behaviors, spatial movements, individual differences and even real-time data on emotions and experience. Consumer research usually conducted on small sample sizes, in laboratory settings, and with self-report questionnaires collected far from both the time and the context of consumption is likely to be transformed by the mobile and big data revolution.

This research project will provide a first contribution for the integration of different types and sources of consumer data while testing the impact of mobile technology on the consumer experience, and it has the ultimate goal of establishing a new code of practice of 'research and development' for retail innovation. Our work will extend on previous literature on various levels: (1) it will improve the understanding of experience by examining the relative impact of individual differences, socio-demographics, motivation, emotions; (2) it will show the role of experience and its predictors on technology acceptance and satisfaction; (3) it will show the impact of technologies on the consumer experience and provide indications for a consumer-centered-contextualized approach to technology design and implementation; 4) It will advance consumer behaviour models by adding spatial movements data.

We will develop a longitudinal system for the real time gathering and integration of consumer data within the retail space. The system will be based on the management of a 'mobile and location-based' panel of consumers that will be both an innovative source of primary data and at the same time a future test bed for the experimentation of novel concepts and technologies for consumer experience strategies, location based communication, mobile-based consumer research. The project will involve the development of mobile apps and the recruiting of panel participants based on state of the art statistical representation of the client base of Sainsbury's. A first study will be carried out for the test of a mobile application and the integration of 'attitudes and behaviours' with 'real-time consumers' experience and feelings' with 'spatial movements' with 'personality and individual differences' and 'socio-demographics'. This first study will provide the basis for further methodological and technological developments with the aim of advancing consumer analytic applications based on context-specific strategies of the retail partner.

The project 'CAPRI' will generate substantial economic and societal impacts as it seeks to develop new consumer analytics and new codes of practice for 'research and development' of retail innovation. It will maximize the knowledge exchange between academia and the retail sector. Impact will be guaranteed by the wide number of stakeholders involved in conducting the research and disseminating its results. The main sponsor and partner, Sainsbury's who are in the vanguard of employing new technologies for enriching the consumer experience and making their store practices more efficient in terms of interaction with consumers, will be an obvious major beneficiary.

Beneficiaries will be those who are directly involved in consumer insight research and in the management of retail innovation and customer services:
1. Market researchers who are experimenting with new methods of mobile data collection. Our project will foster the advancement of consumer research toward new concepts of interactive data collection merging consumer research with consumer services and engagement.
2. Media researchers and professionals who are interested in the test of location-based advertising effectiveness, augmented reality, mobile based services and apps. Our 'mobile and location-based panel' will give the opportunity to conduct experimental tests on the effects of any type of retail technology and innovation.
3. Retail managers who are involved in monitoring and managing consumers' experience . This project will extend the notion of consumer experience and will provide new knowledge for improving consumer profiling for consumer experience in-store strategies.
4. Retail managers who lead retail technology innovation. Our project will influence a new code of practices for 'research and development' of technology based on in-depth knowledge of consumers, context, retail strategies and their reciprocal interactions.
5. Retail managers who are involved in the implementation of consumer analytics. With the development of a systematic and longitudinal system of big data collection and integration, we will be able to inform the implementation of meaningful consumer analytics and promote the development of accessible tools for easy and effective managerial use.
6. Technology providers who are involved in the development of software for the management and understanding of big data. Our results will be critical for further technology developments for the analysis of big data and their applications for different scopes and audiences.
7. Technology providers and app developers who are interested in the consumer-centered-contextualized approach to design solutions that are tailored to the retailer's strategy, brand and customers. This project will attempt to fill the gap between technology development and retail innovation by shifting the focus of the design on the understanding of the consumers' experience in given contexts. This will open up new opportunities for cooperation and exchange between retailers, technology providers and academia.

Other beneficiaries will follow constituencies whose research is part of academia and involved with consumer psychology, consumer research, retail studies, geospatial analysis and simulation models. Those who are
8. Extending consumer behavior models: the method that we will develop of integration of various types and sources of consumer data including spatial analysis will challenge traditional consumer psychology methods of data collection and will also provide innovative theoretical understanding of consumer behavior.
9. Extending geospatial analysis and simulation models: by integrating consumers' movements data with data on individual differences, motivation and emotions, we will explain consumer spatial behavior and drastically innovate traditional in-store simulation models.