This afternoon’s strategy session titled “Emerging Retail Technologies” honed in on four new areas of focus for retailers. Brian Walker, Senior Analyst, eCommerce from Forrester Research focused on personalization, while Denise Zimmerman, President & CSO of NetPlus Marketing took on social shopping. Scott Dunlap, CEO & Founder of Nearby Now and Joe Chung, Co-founder & CEO of Allurent rounded out the panel with presentations mobile marketing and what Chung has coined as “the catalog problem.” Rob Schmults, Formerly VP, Business Management at GSI Commerce, moderated the session.

I was particularly intrigued by Chung’s presentation about online catalogs. Chung began his presentation with a photo of three heaping, messy piles of catalogs. He came back to all of these after a two-week vacation. This sight got Chung thinking – how could he take the best parts of catalogs, do away with the negatives and translate the medium to the online space? As he put it, he was interested in “adapting old metaphors to new technologies.”

While there are downsides to catalogs – they generate a lot of waste and are expensive, for starters, there are also a number of positives. Catalogs drive traffic to web sites, drive in-store visits, create an impactful experience that is pushed to the consumer, are portable, never crash, and customers really love them.

Chung admits that past attempts at online catalogs haven’t been very successful. In his opinion, they have failed because the translation to online media was too literal. He advises thinking of online catalogs as an additional channel, not a replacement for paper catalogs.

He wrapped up his presentation with a demonstration of a pilot he conducted with a subset of Anthropologie’s customers. This online catalog pilot consisted of a desktop application that consumers download onto their computers. Since it is downloaded, a consumer can take it with her where ever she takes her laptop, much like a catalog. Another loved feature of catalogs is the ability to whip through all of the options at a quick clip and then zoom back in on the products that catch your eye. The pilot Chung created for Anthropologie incorporated this ability as well – the user can scroll across the page at different speeds and can double back to find out more about a product of interest, such as if it comes in a particular color and size.

Anthropologie’s online catalog brought a number of cool extras to the table as well. These innovations – including the ability to search the company’s offerings by color, utilize your Outlook contacts to ship products, and schedule replenishments of products on a regular basis – harness the technological advancements that are only available online. Another added feature is the ability to purchase a product on the spot.

While he concluded that this was a successful pilot, he admitted that there is still significant work to be done. But, as several speakers have noted today, innovation is key to the future success of retailers’ cross channel marketing strategies, and innovation doesn’t come without risk.