My first iPhone was the digital equivalent of a Swiss Army knife and I couldn’t believe how good it was. 

It liberated me – offering web, email, e-books and music on the go, plus a zillion apps from the fun to the functional. Oh, and it made phone calls too! The new iPhone 5 is good… but it’s not a step-change, and as a customer, that’s what I’ve grown to expect. Like a greedy child, I always want more and no matter how shiny the package, merely being good is no longer good enough.

 

That thought struck me as I listened to Jon Stine address the subject that Digital Changes Everything at the Westfield Breakfast Seminars around Australia this week. Stine, a US Director of tech giant Cisco Systems Internet Business Solutions Group, spoke compellingly of what he calls “internet-shaped expectations”.

 

Stine observes that instant Google search results and transparency of information on the web are reshaping the customer’s frame of reference. Customers say: “I want to instantly know everything about a product or service. I want to know what others honestly think. And I want to know if it’s in stock right now.”

 

Speed, abundance, control and interaction are also hallmarks of online and become the default for what all retailers are expected to deliver. The customer response is: “I want it fast. I want unlimited choice. I want to call the shots. I want to be part of the experience.”

 

A constant barrage of new devices and apps also create a benchmark that just keeps getting raised. The new iPad has just launched only seven months after the last version. A customer enquiry on Twitter must be instantly acknowledged and acted upon, no matter what the time of day or night.

 

Internet-shaped expectations alter what defines both a product and a store in retail today. Stine’s new explanation of a product goes by the acronym SEES – SKU, Experience, Expertise, and Orchestration Services. So, yes a product is an item, but it must be wrapped in a layer of experience, delivered with outstanding expertise, and backed up and enabled by a range of services.

 

In terms of the store, many online retailers intuitively respond to rising customer expectations by, for example, introducing same day delivery. One renowned Australian online fashion player aims to let a customer purchase and have the product delivered faster than it would be possible to drive to a mall and physically shop. In the UK, a service called Shutl goes one better – offering 90 minute delivery on online purchases for a small fee.

 

Other retail pioneers are recasting the physical store, using the Internet as a template. The new, much hyped Burberry store on Regent St in London is, as Stine puts it, a “living, breathing website”. Its store sales people are “Googles with smiles”. From the huge internet linked screen in the centre of the store, to RFID tags on garments that trigger multimedia content on virtual mirrors, Burberry bristles with technology.

 

Customers have shifted. And as retailers we need to shift too. What it’s possible to do on the net sets the level in customers’ minds. So our online offerings need to be at least as good as the Amazons and Asos’s of this world. And our bricks and mortar stores can no longer be static – they should be living breathing websites. 

As Jon Stine says, “digital changes everything”.