Retail innovation is a new or significantly improved service concept that is taken into practice. It includes examples such as: new customer interaction channels, a distribution system or a technological concept or a combination of them. A service innovation always includes replicable elements that can be identified and systematically reproduced in other cases or environments. The replicable element can be the service outcome or the service process as such or a part of them. Innovation benefits both the service producer and customers and it improves its developer’s competitive edge. Retail innovation is a service product or service process that is based on some technology or systematic method. In retail however, the innovation does not necessarily relate to the novelty of the technology itself but the innovation often lies in the non-technological areas. Retail innovations can for instance be new solutions in the customer interface, new distribution methods, novel applications of technology in the service process, new forms of operation with the supply chain or new ways to organize and manage services. The course provides a study of how retailers must continually review and introduce innovational concepts to remain competitive and explore how patterns change in markets creating both opportunities and threats to retailers.

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