I have been telling anyone bored enough to listen for some time now that I believe the next few years are going to see a massive change in the interiors of physical stores where people go to do their shopping.
Over the last 20 years, I would argue, the interior of most stores has changed very little, save for a lick of paint, some new merchandising units and the 5-yearly till/POS refresh. But those retailers who are serious about mobile realise things have got to change. If you accept that people are comparison-shopping in your store, photographing themselves in your changing rooms and uploading the photos to Facebook to get your friends’ feedback before you decide whether or not to buy the thing you’re trying on, and increasingly using their phone as part of the research process, then you can either accept it and look at the opportunities it presents, or ignore it, and bury your head in the sand.
Tescos decision to offer free wi-fi in four of its stores, with a view to rolling it out to them all, shows where the UKs bigest grocery retailer stands. As Tesco chief information officer Mike McNamara told the FT: “You can stand Canute-like and pretend nothing is happening,?or you can say its happening, and I am going to help it happen.”
While I believe my theory is sound, I have had it put to me that this is stage 2 of the mobile revolution. For the moment, retailers that get mobile are concentrating on building a mobile site and/or a mobile app; bringing mobile into the in-store environment is a couple of years away, though the early adopters are starting to deploy things like iPad kiosks to enable shoppers to buy out-of-stock items.
Tesco’s move can only accelerate the process, I believe, as retailers look at using QR codes and barcodes in store to enable shoppers to retrieve more information about high-ticket items, or any items, for that matter. And if you’re going to deploy free wi-fi in-store, when shoppers log on to it, why not redirect them to a mobile microsite that is designed specifically for people who you know are in one of your shops at the point of accessing it. Then use it to serve up offers, discounts and softer CRM content that will give them a reason to stay loyal to you, and maybe even think twice about ordering from Amazon, even if they can find the same thing for £5 less. 
Of course, Tesco is not pioneering the concept of in-store wi-fi. McDonalds, Pizza Express and Starbucks have already been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. The difference is that those are, essentially, cafés of one sort or another, where the free wi-fi is offered as an additional customer benefit to get people into that café as opposed to another one, the appeal being that they can surf the web free of charge most likely on a laptop or tablet, while they enjoy a vanilla latte or a Quarterpounder.
The Tesco move is something different, targeted firmly at smartphone users, enabling shoppers to do all the things that the analysts tell us they are already doing, even if there is no cellular signal inside the store, and at the retailer’s expense, rather than coming out of the consumer’s data plan. In that sense, this is a pioneering move, and Tesco should be applauded for it. Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long to roll out beyond the four stores in which it is currently being piloted.
David Murphy
Editor
