奢侈品牌利用新科技瞭解顧客
A tour bus is depositing 50 or so passengers on the pavement next to the grands magasins — Paris’s fabled department stores, Galeries Lafayette and Printemps.
一輛旅遊大巴停在巴黎傳奇的百貨商場——老佛爺百貨公司(Galeries Lafayette)和巴黎春天(Printemps)旁邊，下來了大約50名乘客。
As they stream into the stores, any brand would love to know who they are and what makes them notice one product over another.
當他們魚貫走入商場，所有品牌商家都會迫切地想知道，他們是什麼人？他們爲什麼注意某款商品而不是其他？
A new batch of French entrepreneurs is hoping to make that dream a reality for luxury houses.
一些法國企業家希望可以爲奢侈品商家實現這一夢想。
Tech start-ups and luxury retail consultants say top brands across the luxury sector are quietly pushing to bring the advantages of the web into their retail stores.
科技創業企業和奢侈品零售顧問稱，在奢侈品行業，各大頂級品牌正悄然將互聯網的優點應用到零售店中。
Parisian grands magasins and flagship stores on the Champs-élysées have been testing smartphone frequency detectors and connected merchandising displays to experiment with collecting data from shoppers as soon as they approach their retail store — much like online retailers have for years used cookies planted in web browsers.
巴黎的百貨商場，還有香榭麗舍大道上的各家旗艦店，一直在試驗智能手機頻率檢測裝置以及聯繫式商品展示技術，從顧客走近商店時開始，在他們身上收集信息——就像在線零售商多年來使用植入瀏覽器的Cookie（小型文本文件）。
Such customer intelligence could be the key to understanding why a particular shopper gets back on the bus with a parcel from Gucci rather than Louis Vuitton, or vice versa,
這類顧客信息很關鍵，有助於理解某個顧客回大巴時爲什麼拿着古馳(Gucci)包裝袋，而不是路易威登(Louis Vuitton)的袋子，或者相反。
and gives brands an edge in a fiercely competitive luxury sector.
掌握了這類信息，品牌商家能在競爭激烈的奢侈品行業佔據一個優勢。
A lot of brands want to break down the barriers between their digital and physical presence, says Clémence Dehaene, co-founder of Retail & Digital 2.0, a start-up that integrates motion sensors, screens, and other high-tech elements in luxury retail displays.
許多品牌都想打破數字業務與實體業務之間的壁壘，Retail & Digital 2.0聯合創始人克萊門絲.德阿納(Clémence Dehaene)表示，這家創業企業將動作傳感器、屏幕及其他高科技元素融入到奢侈品零售展示中。
The start-up’s interactive retail stands — which have been used for fragrances by Dior and Armani — use motion-activated screens to tell customers about the products they pick up.
該公司的交互式零售櫃檯(interactive retail stand)採用動作感應屏幕，向顧客介紹他們拿到的商品，動作傳感器再將顧客與機器交互產生的信息反饋給商家。
Motion sensors feed data about the customers’ interaction back to the brand.
迪奧(Dior)和阿瑪尼(Armani)已經採用了他們的櫃檯來展示香水。
Ms Dehaene says metrics like these could revolutionise the craft of merchandising, allowing retailers to modify ineffective displays without waiting to register a drop in sales.
德阿納表示這些度量技術或許會徹底改變商品陳列技巧，零售商家不必等到銷售下滑，就能夠對沒有效果的陳列進行改進。
If a brand manages to mix the efficiency of digital with the emotional aspect of a physical store then they have a real card to play, she says.
她說：如果一個品牌設法將數字化的效率與實體店鋪的感性一面結合起來，那他們手上就有了一張好牌。
Another start-up, Retency, provides retailers with antennas that detect the unique frequencies of individual smartphones.
另一家創業型企業Retency向零售商供應能檢測智能手機獨特頻率的天線。
The firm can use these antennas to track a customer’s movements through a retail store and even to identify them on future visits as soon as they walk through the door.
企業可以用這些天線來追蹤顧客在零售店中的行動軌跡，甚至在他們下一次走進大門時識別他們。
One French leader in luxury leather goods recently used the technology to track all the people who passed their window display at one of Paris’s department stores.
法國某高檔皮具品牌最近就在巴黎一家百貨商場的門店採用了該技術，對所有從他們的櫥窗前經過的人進行追蹤。
The brand did not want to be named as it could be perceived by some shoppers as intruding on their privacy.
該品牌不想透露自己的名稱，因爲部分消費者可能會認爲這侵犯了他們的隱私。
The smartphone frequency detectors enabled the brand to estimate the proportion of people who entered the department store after seeing the display, as well as how many ended up making a purchase from their brand’s point-of-sale.
利用手機頻率檢測器，該品牌可以估算看到他們的櫥窗陳列後有幾成顧客進了店，以及有多少人最終在這一銷售網點買了東西。
Luxury brands have a lot of information about their clients — both through cookies gathered during online shopping and information collected at the register —
Retency聯合創始人伊莎貝爾.博爾德里(sabelle Bordry)表示：（通過收集顧客在線購物時產生的Cookie，以及他們的註冊信息）奢侈品牌能掌握客戶的大量信息。
but don’t make the connection [between a shopper and their customer profile] until checkout, says Isabelle Bordry, co-founder of Retency.
但在他們結賬前，不要在購物者和客戶檔案之間建立聯繫。
It’s essential for physical retailers to have access to the same information as they would online.
對於實體零售商來說，像在網絡上一樣獲得顧客信息是非常重要的。
Other companies can track visitors anonymously using the unique fingerprint emitted by smartphones, but Ms Bordry’s retail ambitions go much further.
其他公司可以用智能手機發射的獨特指紋對訪客進行匿名跟蹤，但博爾德里的目標遠遠不止於此。
Retency claims it can identify the smartphones of shoppers who make a purchase by cross-referencing sales records with the data from the smartphone frequency antennas.
Retency聲稱，憑藉從智能手機頻率天線獲得的數據，依據交叉參照(cross-referencing)銷售記錄，其可識別購買了某件東西的顧客的手機。
But French regulations require authorisation from customers for brands to use this de-anonymised data.
但根據法國監管規定，品牌商家要獲得消費者授權才能使用這些去匿名數據。
Ms Bordry says Retency is working with stores to get this permission included in the agreements for store loyalty programmes.
博爾德里表示，Retency正與一些百貨商店合作，以獲得這些商店的忠誠顧客計劃相關協議中包含的此類許可。
For customers with a loyalty card, brands could know about shoppers’ presence as soon as their smartphone is detected in any of the brand’s stores.
對於持有會員卡的顧客，一旦他們的手機在一個品牌旗下任何門店被檢測到，這個品牌就能立刻得知顧客光臨了他們的店。
The technology gives brands feedback on their retail efforts, and helps them fine-tune promotions in real-time.
該技術能把營銷舉措的效果反饋給商家，並幫助他們及時調整促銷活動。
Ms Bordry says large screens in stores could soon be programmed to match shoppers’ known preferences.
博爾德里表示店鋪裏的大屏幕可以被迅速編程，以符合購物者的已知偏好。
The screens could even adapt to the interests of first-time visitors to a store without identifying them, based on the time they spend in different departments or looking at a particular product (as tracked by Retency’s antennas).
根據消費者在不同區域花費的時間，或瀏覽某樣商品的時間（利用Retency天線追蹤），屏幕甚至可以在消費者初次進店時就迎合他們的興趣，而無需識別他們。
The technology will be in stores by December, she says.
博爾德里表示該技術將於12月份投用到店鋪中。
While such tools could improve the retail experience for customers as well as brands, the reluctance of Retency’s luxury clients to be identified is telling,
雖然此類工具可以改善顧客和品牌的零售體驗，但可以感到Retency的奢侈品客戶不願被識別出來。
given that the sector depends on discretion.
在這個行業關鍵要看客戶心意。
Clients may be uncomfortable about such aggressive use of their personal data.
客戶可能對個人信息遭到過度使用感到不舒服。
I don’t mind when a salesperson contacts me personally from the stores where I’m a client, but that’s because I gave them my information, says Adrienne Joseph, a customer at the LVMH-owned department store Le Bon Marché.
LVMH旗下百貨公司好商佳(Le Bon Marché)的顧客阿德里安娜.約瑟夫(Adrienne Joseph)表示：在商店裏，作爲顧客，我不介意銷售人員與我直接接觸，但這是因爲是我自己給了他們我的信息。
But if a retailer were collecting data about her behaviour without her knowing it? I would really not like that, she says.
假如商家在她不知道的情況下收集有關她購買行爲的信息呢？她說：說真的我不喜歡那樣。
While she has accepted that online retailers may collect a lot of information about her, she says she would miss the feeling of anonymity she has when she goes into a department store.
雖然她承認在線零售商可能會收集她的大量信息，但她表示，她會懷念逛商場時沒人認識她的感覺。
The respect of privacy is a key aspect of the luxury business, says George-Edouard Dias,
歐萊雅(L’Oréal)前高管喬治-愛德華.迪亞斯(George-Edouard Dias)表示：尊重隱私是奢侈品行業的關鍵要素。
a former L’Oréal executive whose start-up, QuantStreams, works with luxury brands on managing data and customer relationships.
他的創業型企業QuantStreams致力於與奢侈品牌合作管理數據和客戶關係。
If customers receive too many messages from a store, or the messages become too precisely targeted, they may feel like a brand has been spying on them, he says.
他說如果顧客收到商家發送的太多信息，或者這些信息針對性過於準確，他們可能會覺得該品牌一直在監視他們。
Brands will also need to be careful not to misinterpret the information provided by new technologies.
各品牌還需注意不要誤讀通過新技術收集的信息。
Smartphone frequency detectors and connected displays could identify that one point in the store is a hotspot where traffic tends to halt.
智能手機頻率檢測器和聯繫式商品展示可以識別店中某個地點是人流駐足的熱點。
That could be because the clients like the display, or because they are lost and confused, says Mr Dias.
迪亞斯表示：這可能是因爲顧客喜歡那裏展示的某件商品，也可能是他們迷路了或感到困惑。
There is a lot of room for error in the interpretation.
在解讀上有很大的誤讀空間。
Brands should also beware of misusing information on previous spending to divide customers into the rich and the poor, said Paul Duffour, a luxury retail consultant with the MAD Network.
MAD Network的奢侈品零售顧問保羅.迪富爾(Paul Duffour)表示，各品牌也應注意不要憑着消費記錄，錯誤地將顧客劃分爲富人和窮人。
The luxury business has historically understood that a small customer will grow into a big one.
奢侈品行業向來知道，一個小顧客可以成長爲一個大客戶。
