{"id":3530,"date":"2014-08-25T22:19:53","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2014-08-25T22:19:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T22:19:53","slug":"discovery-is-dying-and-data-is-the-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2014\/08\/25\/discovery-is-dying-and-data-is-the-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery Is Dying And Data Is The Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Doug Stephens<\/p>\n

\"DATA\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I, like you, don\u2019t actually see everything my friends are posting on Facebook.\u00a0 Instead, I see only what Facebook\u2019s newsfeed algorithm<\/a><\/b> deems should <\/i>be most relevant to me, based on my activity. Similarly, eBay and Amazon deliver product recommendations to my inbox, based largely on things I\u2019ve viewed and bought in the past. And as most of us have experienced, after casually searching a product on Google, ads for that same product begin to routinely stalk us online for days, like a jilted lover that just won\u2019t let go.<\/p>\n

Increasingly the people, places and things that are making it into our field of consumer vision are being data-driven, algorithmically pre-determined and mathematically manifested. And it\u2019s not just happening online; the physical retail world is also succumbing to the same phenomenon with companies like Google working successfully to connect online search with real world find. \u00a0Apps like Google Now<\/a><\/b>, for example, will deliver mobile notifications when items you\u2019ve searched for on Google happen to be in your physical proximity.<\/p>\n

The Shrinking Universe<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

In one sense I am a strong proponent of this new acuity of data as an antidote to the nauseating levels of mass advertising that have plagued us for the better part of a century. However, I also believe an overly data-centric approach to retail will have an anesthetizing effect on our online shopping experiences, increasingly sapping them of the exhilaration of accidental discovery.<\/p>\n

Consider that not so long ago, the internet was largely untamed and very often seemed to propel us randomly into an ever-expanding universe of discovery – people, places and things we\u2019d never before given thought to, could be stumbled upon in an exciting way. Now, it seems, we simply get wound into tighter circles of sameness, driven by a logic that we can\u2019t see, don\u2019t fully understand and that often seems not to understand us. Instead of expanding our options, the universe of possibilities seems to contract.<\/p>\n

One Part Math, One Part Magic<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

This death of discovery at the hands of data presents a problem because the true joy of shopping lies in a delicate balance of relevance and randomness.\u00a0 While it\u2019s true that as shoppers, we appreciate being shown things that appeal to our conscious needs and preferences, we also crave the delight of encountering shops we didn\u2019t know we\u2019d love, carrying products we never knew we wanted \u2013the things that come out of nowhere to surprise and enchant us!<\/p>\n

Retailers, who understand this dichotomy, have a tremendous competitive \"Get-My-Book.001\"<\/a>opportunity ahead of them.\u00a0 As more online competitors move to data-driven<\/i> customer analytics and auto-curated product offerings, smart retailers will take a more data-informed<\/i> approach \u2013 treating customer analytics as directional in nature, while consciously injecting a healthy dose of humanoid randomness into both their communications with customers and the curation of their products. \u00a0To recommend a percentage of products \u2013 not because they\u2019re algorithmically relevant to a particular user profile but because someone believes they\u2019re just totally awesome!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s critical therefore, as we embrace an increasingly data-rich approach to business, that we not lose sight of the fact that great retail like so many other things is a unique and wonderful alchemy of insight, instinct and impulse. \u00a0And data, no matter how good it is, can never replicate true serendipity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Doug Stephens   I, like you, don\u2019t actually see everything my friends are posting on Facebook.\u00a0 Instead, I see only what Facebook\u2019s newsfeed algorithm deems [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1],"tags":[191,241,316,282,67,24,317],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-uncategorized","tag-amazon","tag-big-data","tag-customer-analytics","tag-ebay","tag-facebook","tag-retail","tag-retargeting"],"yoast_head":"\nDiscovery Is Dying And Data Is The Disease | Retail Prophet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.retailprophet.com\/2014\/08\/25\/discovery-is-dying-and-data-is-the-disease\/\" 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