Live Blog: World Retail Congress

Editor's note: all times reflect local Paris time

World Retail Congress hashtag is #worldretail

Day 2 of MasterCard's Innovation, Interaction and Insight Panels at World Retail Congress in Paris.

16:45 That's a wrap folks. MasterCard's Innovation,, Interaction and Insight panels at World Retail Congress is closed.

16:44 Marro: KFC doesn't ask customers to fill out a profile to donate. So they don't have demographics on who donates, only numbers.

16:42 Aldous: [World Food Programme] launched a new product, we call it Donate API - where any retailer can put it on their site - we provide rich content for that site and it directs people to where that can make their donations.

16:41: Eklof: MasterCard is now working with Lulu in Asia (the Tesco of Asia) to join in with the World Food Programme.

16:36: Eklof: It took a lot of work. Germans are very pragmatic and skeptical. There is also high cash usage in Germany, so we had to encourage electronic giving. We also used social media channels. The charitable giving rate rose to 7% of transactions - German average is 2%. But the real reason why our programme worked in Germany, was because everyone in the ecosystem- retailers, banks, consumers - were involved.

16:35: Q: Germany is one of the skeptical countries when it comes to charitable giving - how did MasterCard deal with Germany?

16:34: Aldous: To get to a world of zero hunger we need the consumer, business and government involvement. We need technical expertise, to get that we need to partner with the private sector.

16:32: Marro: We allow local manager a flexible framework to raise money for the causes. Car washing, face painting in store etc...

16:31: Q: What is the challenge to offer local relevance to global programmes??

16:29: Eklof: By providing the payments infrastructure to charities for payments we also provide the data related to that platform on how consumer behave.

16:25: Marro: 80% of our network is managed by franchises. So you need to get those franchises engaged. But at the same time you need consumers and employees involved as well. We do a lot in training our staff to be ambassadors for the charity. <== "Would you like to donate 60p with those fries?"

16:24: Aldous: 1. You need relevance with your consumers - such as with KFC and food. 2. Your programme needs to be 'authentic'. 3. Simple to execute - for both consumer and retailer.

16:23: Lalleman: Q: What are the key drivers to have a successful social cause?

16:19: Eklof: 30% of our customer feel that hunger & poverty are top global concerns, which is why MasterCard decided to partner with World Food Programme. Customers dictate care priorities.

The MasterCard programme is called Digital Food. We are also developing a payments platform for charitable giving to the World Food Programme.

16:17: Marro: KFC has raised $148 million, which means 600 million meals served by being a part of the World Food Programme so far.

16:10: Video intro to panel. Women control 66% of global spending. Not surprising.

16:07: Lalleman leading the panel keeps calling MasterCard, 'MasterFood' - maybe a new startup from the card giant? ;-)

16:00: Last panel of the day:

Last #WorldRetail MasterCard panel of the day. pic.twitter.com/srNgcFvLqB

- Elizabeth Lumley (@LizLum) October 8, 2013

Come back at 16:00 for our final tea time panel - Consumers are looking for companies that care

13:19: That's it for the lunch time panel. Shop This! launched - Wired happy. Job done.

13:12: Lyons: With Shop This! you can buy within the digital magazine without leaving the content. If the purchasing takes a consumer away from the content, the likelihood you will return to the content is diminished.

13:07: Shop This! is going live in the November edition of Wired magazine. Lyons is demo'ing the app now:

The Shop This! MasterCard app, using Masterpass Wallet at Wired mag, being demo'd now at #WorldRetail pic.twitter.com/IwCNgMYqxD

- Elizabeth Lumley (@LizLum) October 8, 2013

13:05: Mittman: At Wired we call it the 'snack culture' People don't digest large amounts of media, they 'snack' on bits of media. Shop This! allows consumers to 'snack' on items.

13:00: Lyons: [MasterCard] runs innovation labs where our developers have 48 hours to come up with solutions to problems. We've also created an in-house VC fund to help start ups (products) to scale and gain market share. They operate inside MasterCard as if they were a startup. It is fast paced and allows us to take new products into market quicker than before.

12:55: Lyons: The key thing at MasterCard is that is no longer about the payments. We would be paying a disservice to not only the device, but also the customer. No one wakes up up thinking 'I can't wait to make a payment.' Payments need to be safe, secure and as frictionless as possible.

Wired and MasterCard talk abt innovation #WorldRetail pic.twitter.com/3S64DAXBAE

- Elizabeth Lumley (@LizLum) October 8, 2013

12:49:The Captivating the Consumer Through Innovation panel (or let's take a look at the Wired tablet app panel) is about to start.

Panel are rehearsing for the 12:45 panel and guess what they're talking about...?

Wired tablet edition showcases in-app payments from MasterCard http://t.co/a3cGmqo2iG

- Finextra (@Finextra) October 8, 2013

11:37: That's it for this morning's 'customer is King' panel. Come back at 12:45 for the lunch time panel:

Captivating the Consumer Through Innovation - Lunch time panel

11:30: Q: How will people be shopping in 2023?

Ross: Retail have a lot to learn from service industries, such as airlines and hotels. Luxury brands should offer customers 'free upgrades' to give the 'economy' customer the first class experience. <==How do you track/reward that? Loyalty?

Goldsmith: It is difficult to say what will be around in ten years - a lot of social brands are struggling to cope with the amount of change happening now. But the customer will continue to gain power. We see that now, if someone complains on Twitter and doesn't get a response in 20 minutes there is an uproar.

11:24: Goldsmith: [Giving examples of metrics in social media campaigns.] P&G in the UK can track how many people 'like' their video on Facebook, when they liked it and when they download a related voucher, and then redeemed it at Tesco. 50% of those who watched and liked the video downloaded and redeemed the voucher. This was a 90% improvement on anything P&G has attempted with couponing. Will this change buying habits? I think it will. But the innovative process has to work and it has to improve the experience.

11:17: Vedrenne: Speaking about trust: Consumers will never help you to rebuild trust - convenience will always trump helping you build trust.

11:14: Ross: Yes, payments is seen as 'techie' and owned by finance, and overly complicated, by the retailers.

11:13: Dobson: Often payments are the last thing retailers think about when looking at strategy - but it such as big part.

11:11: Ross: Fraud checking can lag 'cycle time' [time to ship and deliver items] which can harm the customer experience and create more 'churn.' If no one is checking for fraud over the weekend (for example) then the delivery time will be delayed.

11:08: Ross: Customers are leaving an extraordinary trail of data - retailers need to decide what that want to do with that data. Retailers need to 1. Decide what they want to deliver to the customer. 2. How they are going to deliver that experience. and 3. How they plan to use that data.

11:04: Dobson: [advise to banks and merchants] Don't try and enhance payments innovation entirely in-house. Go out and seek payments expertise and partner with others in the industry.

MasterCard's morning tea time panel

MasterCard's morning tea time panel #WorldRetail pic.twitter.com/thuecazdkm

- Elizabeth Lumley (@LizLum) October 8, 2013

10:58: Dobson: Q: What does convenience mean to your customer? I don't want to take my credit card out if I'm on a train (and want to make a payment. I want my loyalty cards integrated digitally. Many merchants take their online web presence and put that on the mobile - that doesn't work. Global merchants need to consider local payments methods used in each region.

10:52: Burkett: Payments has often been considered a 'back office' function. However, merchants are now looking at how payments can influence their digital strategy.

10:50: Peeps piling in for the Digital solutions driving great customer experiences, morning tea break panel. Will start soon folks.

10:45: Digital solutions driving great customer experiences - Morning tea break panel

12:45: Captivating the Consumer Through Innovation - Lunch time panel

16:00: Consumers are looking for companies that care - afternoon tea break panel

Well, that's it folks for Day One of the MasterCard sessions at World Retail Congress. See you again on Tuesday, October 8th at 10:45 am, Paris time.

16:48: Higgins: There is a difference between enabling payments for the underserved and offering full banking to the unbanked. But the revolution we are part of will make enhance financial services for everyone.

16:47: Q for panel: Because of the connectivity, because of improvements in infrastructure - are the global unbanked the consumers of the future?

16:40: Higgins: The digital revolution isn't about changing the way you do things (buy stuff) but changing what you want to do - such as instead of buying songs via iTunes, signing up to Spotify.

16:34: Daly: I don't think this is about a permanent shift from physical to digital or from cash to non-cash - it is about setting ourselves up for however the customer wants to interact with us. Forcing change is not the right way to do that. When you have a brick and mortar business it can be difficult to take the investment out of that and into innovation. The was to do that is not to start at corporate HQ. We set up an innovation lab in Silicon Valley to help solve this challenge.

16:23: Higgins: There are two types of trust. Trust that a company (bank) will do what they say and Trust that a company or bank will do what is in the best interest of the customer. Banks score low with this. Tesco uses the loyalty card to reward loyalty, and we use this with the bank. Banking doesn't have a history of rewarding loyalty. However, Tesco uses the Club Card allows the bank to assess the risk and credit quality of customers.

16:21: Higgins: Everytime I see a new technology I ask 'Does this make our customer's life easier, or harder?

16:20: Higgins, CEO Tesco Bank, going through the history of the RBS/Tesco partnership in 1997. Tesco has full ownership since 2008.

16:17: Daly: We always talk about 'inclusion' as good from a social space - but it is good as a business case. Our customers are looking for more digitized form of money transfer. That is growing.

16:14: Barnett: In the UK only about 10% of value (50% of transactions) use paper cash. These types of economies will be, almost, paper cashless soon. All they have to do is solve public transport.

16:11: Q for the Panel: Is there a world beyond cash?

16:07:

MasterCard's New Global Consumer panel at #worldretail pic.twitter.com/AgPt2sp3fV

- Elizabeth Lumley (@LizLum) October 7, 2013

16:00: The New Global Consumer panel will start soon. Overrunning plenary to blame...again...

Come back at 16:00 for the tea time panel - The New Global Consumer - Reaching the next 2 billion customers

13:40: OK, peeps, that's the end of the MasterCard lunch time session on data.

13:38: Robinson: What is really missing from retailer's loyalty schemes is the emotional connection.

13:33: Wilcock: In the future we will see more personal online filters - such as stopping online ads.

13:31: Kearns: There are a lot of players in the mobile ecosystem (telcos) that are working to help customers see monetary value from their digital identity.

13:30: Kearns: What MasterCard sees is a 16 digit account number - we don't see your name or any other personal data. We have privacy-by-design in the data.

13:28: Panel Q: Will privacy cause customers to demand more control over their data or will privacy concerns lessen? There are consumers who *know* the value of their personal data.

13:25: Wilcock: Facebook and Google are *not* a social network and a search engine - they are both advertising businesses that claim to be free. We will see a sea change where that process becomes more transparent to the consumer in the future. Consumer may see benefits from that.

13:24: Robinson: None of us (big or small retailer) have a problem with not having the data is knowing what data to use.

13:22: Panel Q: Is Big Data out of reach for SMEs?

13:20: Kearns: One big challenge is how to you track people who view 'online' and buy in store? At MasterCard we have that data.

13:18: Robinson: This is not about us introducing consumers to the new age of retail - it is the other way around. 1. you need to be 'channel' agnostic. 2. Know the 'strengths' of each channel 3. How do you work out the data join and insights from each channel and customer.

13:17: 'What do we mean by Omni-channel?', Robinson <==Yes, exactly.

13:15: Kearns: Age is not the determining factor in whether someone 'shares' a lot online.

13:13: Robinson: Online site find (what Wilcock discussed) easier to do. At Boots we try to 'get the fingerprint of the customer' into each communication. We 'segment' instead of individualize.

13:10: Wilcock: Predictive analytics are the new 'rocket fuel' of this 'convergence channel'. Retail sites will 'mold' themselves to your (consumer's) personality.

13:06: Iacobuzio: MasterCard Insight's research. There are five global online personality types: (all around 20%)Open Sharers; Simply Interactors; Soley Shoppers; Passive Users; Proactive Protectors.

12:45: Little Data = Big Impact - Making your data more consumable and actionable - lunch panel

12:41: MasterCard's lunch time panel will start a tad late this afternoon, due to an over running opening keynote at World Retail Congress. But on an up note, the economist from Deloitte's say the global economy is on an upswing! :-)

Come back at 12:45 for the lunch time panel - Little Data = Big Impact - Making your data more consumable and actionable.

09:59: Good morning from Paris everyone. That's the MasterCard breakfast session over at World Retail Congress.

09:51: Herz: Brazil is very expensive. Our biggest competition is Brazilians buying products outside of Brazil. Our ecommerce offering has to compete globally.

09:49: Mazurier: In 2008/9 we were a bit lucky, when we moved into contactless because it coincided with merchants also thinking about replacing payments terminals in France.

09:45:Lane talking about the using transactual data to deliver more targeted products to consumers.

#WorldRetail #MasterCard's Lane "it's factual, transactional data, but it is anonymous"

- MasterCard (@MasterCardNews) October 7, 2013

09:43: Lane: Consumers want a uniformed way to make all transactions. Currently, there are many different check out options - some good some bad. Convergence is more than plastic moving to digital. People want a common way to transact.

09:31: Lane: Smartphones will 'probably' be replacing plastic for payments in the future. <==Forget the 'death of cash' it's now the death of 'plastic'!

09:23: Lane at MasterCard - We don't see it as an 'omni-channel' environment, it is a convergent environment. Consumers are winning the technological arms race - the reason is the 'smart phone.' Some stats from Lane: 64% of consumers in the USA have a smart phone. 58% of smartphone users don't go an hour without checking their phone.

09:18: Herz talking about improving the customer experience outside of improving transactions at Livraria Cultura Brazil - such as having restaurants and good coffee available (hey, it's Brazil) as well as a children's area.

09:13: Mazurier: Carrefour Banque offers credit and debit, as well as contact and contactles on all cards in France. The bank processing nine million contactless transactions annually, making it the largest contactless programme in France. Speed at check out has increased by 15% to 30% and sales uplift at transactions has increased by 15%.

First panel of the day-Consumer retail experience #WorldRetail pic.twitter.com/isMKX0LlQp

- Elizabeth Lumley (@LizLum) October 7, 2013

09:07: Mark Faithfull starting the panel by giving his view on what exactly is 'omni-channel'. Can't we just go back to plain old 'retail'? Is would be easier for all of us.

08:59: Now that we've got the internet sorted, (and everyone's had their croissants) we can begin the morning. 

09:00: Maximizing the consumer retail experience - breakfast panel

• Frederic Mazurier, Carrefour Banque Europe
• Jason Lane, MasterCard
• Sergio Herz, Livraria Cultura Brazil
• Moderator, Mark Faithfull, Retail Property Analyst

12:45: Little Data = Big Impact - Making your data more consumable and actionable - lunch panel

• Alex Wilcock, VisualDNA
• Dave Robinson, Boots UK
• Gary Kearns, MasterCard Advisors
• Theodore Iacobuzio, Mastercard Global Insights

16:00: The New Global Consumer - Reaching the next 2 billion customers - tea time panel

• Benny Higgins, Tesco Bank
• David Seer, Weve UK
• Dominic Keen, MoPowered Ltd
• Mark Barnett, MasterCard Advisors
• Rajiv Garodia, Western Union
• Moderator: Kahina Van Dyke, Mastercard