Please!! I would like to know what you think about my presentation. I tried to make it short, practical and with differentiated content from what I thought others would do, so I focused on the for me less evident insights or opportunities and thought of ways of leveraging them. If you watch this presentation please tell me what you think about it here http://venture-lab.org/creativity/reports/9282 or even better and faster, vote for it on the same link! Thanks!!! :o) Cheers!

1. OBSERVATION LAB
Insights and Hidden Opportunities
By Adela Lasa

2. Here I present a selection of the
insights and opportunities I
observed
in my visits to a couple of
bookstores, an optician’s, a frozen
yogurt shop and a couple fashion
shops.

3. Optician’s: Too many glasses to choose
from!!
People mostly go with somebody else so that
they can help them choose. I can see two main
reasons:
1) They can’t see themselves well when they
try on some lenses
2) They don’t trust the staffs’ opinion
Opportunity: virtual fitting simulator
to try on the glasses more quickly
and so that you can see yourself in
3D (and then you won’t need
anybody to accompany you the shop)

4. Bookstores: again, too much choice!
Some people don’t have
enough time to browse or don’t
know how to choose one book
or the other. (for example:
“which book about negotiation
should I buy?”). The information
given by the staff doesn’t always
seem to clear the doubts.
Opportunity:
Some decision making tool could be
developed (examples: some kind of
tactile screen where you answer a couple
of questions and the best 5 options are
displayed according to your answers, or a
computer connected to the internet
where we can browse right away book
ratings and comments.)

5. Not only books in a bookstore!
Some bookstores are also giftshops. Appart
from books some of them were also selling
food, trips, products for cooking, decoration…
(1)
Opportunity:
Other products could be sold as
gifts (for example gardening
material or tools and handcraft
material)

6. “Virtualware” is beeing sold offline!
This could be a trend: “Online goes offline”
(2)
(1)* +(2) = Opportunity:
Other virtual things could be sold
offline in the same way as gifts (for
example, premium or personalized
smartphone apps could be the next
fancy thing to buy this way)
E-books were sold on a specific display only
Opportunity: Mixing e-books with
normal books would encourage the
client to see more things in the store
and buy more books
[* Previous slide]

7. Something was missing! The music!
Every detail in this shop seemed to have been
taken care of! BUT something was dull, something
didn’t match as a whole. Some music was missing!
The decoration gives a cold sensation, but with
the temperatures going down these days, we need
something to warm the atmosphere a bit if you
want your customers to come in.
Opportunity: put some warm
music on (maybe some latin
rythms?)

8. There is so much to improve regarding
sales staff!!!!
Staff is key. In most stores I observed at some point frustrated or unsatisfied
customers after interacting with the sales people. I’m sure that motivated,
honest, customer oriented and not selling oriented personnel in stores would
boost sales.
It depends on the store, but in general selling could be more about gaining
customers’ trust and loyalty by good advise than trying to assure a specific
sale by any means.
Opportunity: Shifting the sales strategy from
selling to gaining customer’s trust by honest
advise.

9. I learned:
Active Observation
is
key
for nourishing our inspiration,
imagination and knowledge.
It’s indeed a very
powerful source of ideas.

10. Bonus: The best trigger I found to
enter a store!
Cheap hot soup
on these first
really cold days!
;-)