Tag: UK

One fifth of Brits would use a robot gift generator to choose the right Valentine’s gift

It’s Valentine’s Day, and if you’ve been stressing about what to buy your other half, the results of the latest survey from the folks at InternetRetailing EXPO, Europe’s leading event for digital and multichannel retail (21st-22rd March 2018, NEC), may be of interest to you.

To help celebrate, it’s pre-released a couple of statistics from its upcoming Future of Shopping survey, which asked 2000 UK consumers a range of questions about their experience of and attitudes towards online v in-store shopping habits. One of the areas studied was artificial intelligence and its potential future role in easing the stress of gift selection.

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The results showed that overall 37% of people found it stressful choosing gifts online for loved ones. More women (43%) found it stressful than men (34%). Overall 31% were baffled by the amount of choice online, 21% put off by the hassle of delivery and 14% by having to buy in advance.

In fact, it appears choosing the right gift is so stressful that 13% of men would use an artificial intelligence–powered gift generator, which analysed the online profile of the person they were buying for, if it were available. Only 8% of women would consider this…

When asked about specific occasions that they would use an AI automatic gift generator 19% would consider using it for Valentine’s gifts!

For further information and to register free for InternetRetailing EXPO and eDelivery EXPO, please visit internetretailingexpo.com. Get involved on Twitter by following @etailexpo and with the hashtags #IRX18 #EDX18.

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We are thrilled to be involved too, and would love to see you on the day. To attend or find out more, all the details are here.

Online brands come onto high streets: The rise of pop ups

Dr. Alastair Moore was invited to Downing Street this week for the launch of Lord Young’s second report on supporting small firms in the UK.

Here at WAPU we (obviously) think that new “pop-up” models of retail – longer than an event and shorter than a lease – play a very important role in regenerating the UK High-Street. It was greatly encouraging to see our contribution recognised in the report, along with partners Pop Up Britain and Popupspace.

“For online businesses, a pop-up offers them retail experience to raise their brand profile, test products and prices and have direct contact with customers, all with minimum financial commitment.”

The report goes on to describe the “early pioneers” striving to improve the model and enhance the experience for others. For example, wonderful new brands like NANUKK. Sarah McLeod said, “when you work alone and online, you never get the feedback – it was wonderful to hear that what I was doing on my own wasn’t crazy and that people actually liked my product and were prepared to buy it”

We are looking forward supporting many great new brands in the future!  You can read more here.