#LDS15 VIDEO: The Potential — And Pitfalls — Of Beacon Marketing

It’s not just about the product or service anymore — retailers must support a positive shopper experience across different channels in order to compete.

During a panel at Street Fight’s Local Data Summit in Denver earlier this month, shopper marketing experts discussed the need to address a new consumer journey where consumers move fluently between the digital and physical worlds.

Sohrab Pirayesh, vice president of user experience at InMarket and George Shaw, director of R&D at RetailNext, agreed that while some retailers have adopted multi-channel retail marketing concepts, others are still turning the corner, and some technologies still have potential for growth. The panel was moderated by Street Fight’s Steven Jacobs, and also featured Ben Gauthier, digital director at TPN Retail.

“The potential pitfalls of beacons are you sometimes don’t get scale,” Pirayesh said. “You need apps that are listening for them. Before it was at an operating system level, you could just ping everybody and get to know them. When you move to beacons, now you have to have an app that’s listening for it.”

April Nowicki is a contributor to Street Fight.