The Inspiration Store – Shopping Mall Show Case for Metro, eBay, PayPal

Case Study

Background

As part of a global cooperation between the retail group Metro, the online marketplace eBay and the payment provider PayPal, they together worked on various projects. The shopping mall showcase “The Inspiration Store” was intended to show how real estate and retail companies can create forward-looking shopping experiences for customers together with established players in digital retail. At the same time, it was to be elaborated which business models and services can help stationary trade to profit more from the digitalisation of trade in the future. Metro AG is not only one of the largest retail groups in Europe, but also an investor and operator of shopping malls through its subsidiary Metro Properties. As such, it is also exposed to the structural change that digitalisation means for the entire retail sector at the level of the landlord of retail space.

„The key to the future of retail is a targeted networking of all sales channels as part of an integrated omnichannel strategy“.

Dr. Stephan Zoll, Vice President, eBay Deutschland

Customers

Objectives

Designed as a showcase, the Inspiration Store should send an important signal to the market that makes the innovative power, future orientation and implementation strength of the operating companies visible. In addition, the Inspiration Store should synergistically solve the different goals and interests of the participating companies. For Metro Properties, the focus was on developing and testing alternative business models for renting vacant commercial space in shopping malls. The online marketplace eBay was able to demonstrate the potential it offers as a partner to retailers for their omnichannel strategy while PayPal was able to show the actual implementation of the possibilities of mobile payment methods at the POS long before they became a standard in stationary retail.

Solution

The heart of the Inspiration Store was a 200 sqm sales area in the newly opened “Weserpark” shopping mall in Bremen. Over a period of three months, the Inspiration Store offered its visitors a fully digitalised shopping experience with stationary and virtual presentation of goods. In addition to the stationary purchase, it was possible to have the goods delivered directly to one’s home via a virtual copy of the entire goods catalogue on the eBay marketplace (Digital Wall) or by scanning the QR code (Same Day Delivery).

The assortment was provided by retail chains of the Metro Group (Media-Saturn, Galeria Kaufhof, real,-) as well as by more than 20 online pureplay sellers of the eBay marketplace. The assortment selection was carried out centrally by the service team of the Inspiration Store, along a six-phase retail calendar. This service team also took over all operational processes for running the Inspiration Store and providing personal advice to customers.

The Inspiration Store provided the selling retailers with an incomparably simple access to selling at the stationary POS – “as easy as checking into a hotel”.

Results

The Inspiration Store was a great success. The conceptual design and technical implementation were carried out smoothly under the management of eStrategy Consulting. During the three-month runtime, customer acceptance provided valuable insights for the future design of POS technology, digitally supported business models and payment methods in stationary retail as well as for the design of omnichannel strategies. The pilot project also met with great interest in the retail world and attracted several company delegations to Bremen’s Weserpark every day.

Our Role

The central challenge for eStrategy Consulting was to develop an implementable overall strategy. In the course of this, all individual omnichannel components of the Inspiration Store (UX, solution design, retail calendar, logistics, operating concept) were designed. In addition, a holistic view of all processes (end2end project management) was taken and every step was managed from the first strategic impulse of the project to the completion of the project and the dismantling of the Inspiration Store. All other tasks (service provider management, operational management, analysis & reporting, etc.) were also the responsibility of eStrategy Consulting – as was the entire content and organisational programme management of the partnership between the Metro Group, PayPal and eBay Inc.