Saturday, June 23, 2007

Web 2.0 in a restaurant ???

Ever wondered what will happen if some of the web 2.0 (or so called) concepts are used in a restaurant or in a dress store ? Well, i was just thinking about it when i came across these funny thoughts, yet interesting ones.
Lets take the very popular amazon's baby "wisdom of crowd" concept if used by KFC. I order for a small bucket of crispy chicken and they tell me that most of the consumers who prefer this have it with salsa sauce. We'll, i woudn't mind spending another extra 7 bucks for it. Or better still, they offer me a discount on chicken original receipe as the same group of people who prefer crispy chicken have a taste for the original reciepe as well. Now what will KFC gain out of it? They will increase sales on other items and at the same time build an impressive alternative list of items. What will i gain ? I'll shed the resistance to try new items and satisfy my taste buds.
Scene 2. I walk into levi's and try out some cargos. They offer me a discount on cool back-packs. Here, the probability of my buying this piece will be more as they are promoting an item after knowing my preference (cargos). But why back-packs ?? Because most of the customers who bought cargos show interest in back-packs as well. This has to be in their records.
Another popular baby of web 2.0 is "tags'. It is the result of user classification. If dress stores define sections based on user preferences, rather than product types, chances are high that the customer will end up buying more of different products. If a section has collection of all sporty products right from Ts to shoes to sweat bands, a customer who prefers sports apparels may end up picking each one of these. She may loose interest if she has to go to a separate shoes or sports accessories section. The point is to arrange or classify sections basis user interests and not product types.
Pardon me for my understanding and interpretations (if wrong) as I am clueless about the functioning of these industries. But having said that, i sometimes feel that it must be the other way round... that is, may be the online industry is taking a clue from other industry. You would agree that if you closely study the marketing and product strategies of these industries. Come to think of it, there would be endless opportunities if experiments are done basis learnings from other industries. The fact can be that these concepts were already prevalent in other industries but didn't have such flashy names or jargons.