As buyers continue to embrace new digital technologies and emerging shopping channels, the customer journey increasingly becomes more complicated. QR codes and beacons can enable a consumer’s arrival to trigger a pre-ordered item to be packed for collection, drastically minimizing waiting time at click&collect counters. It’s vital that brick and mortar retailers invest in the use of digital to persuade people that physical shops aren’t just relevant in an analog world but the only place to get the best omnichannel experience.
To that end, we’ve listed the most creative ways and solutions to use digital for retail store marketing. Let’s look at how a traditional retailer can profit from shoppers’ hunger for digital engagement.
- Set Up Digital Signage
Direct view LED displays is becoming a popular choice for retailers around the world due to its capability to deliver video wall content and seamless imagery that looks great from any angle. Use of color, contrast, and accents helps make shoppers more receptive towards the retail environment, as well as promote a digital experience. And when upfront savings from lower energy consumption is brought into consideration, you’re getting an omnichannel experience that bears its own cost through energy savings.
- Put Your Website In-Store
Another way retailers can deliver an omnichannel experience is by allowing consumers to browse their online shop in their physical location. Doing this can be a great tactic, especially if don’t place all your stock in one store and have multiple warehouses. You can do this by setting up tablets in front of counters or digital kiosks. If people come across something they like, you can just offer a self-service option to place an order and get the item shipped to their house. An example comes in the form of Nike. The sportswear retailer offers a large touchscreen at some of its flagship stores. Customers can navigate Nike.com and place orders in real-time.
- Digitize The Checkout Experience
Do your customers hate long queues? Set up new registers and ensure there are enough cashiers behind records to serve shoppers. To make things interesting, consider having a digitized POS on iPad. The Borough Kitchen, a home product retailer – uses iPads to combat long lines at its store. They can add a new till at peak times instantly by switching to another tablet, something that’s impossible to achieve with traditional till systems. Also, the checkout process can be untethered when it comes to an iPad. Instead of waiting for cash wrap, the process can be taken over to the customer to ring up sales at any point in time.
- Bring The Store to The People
Instead of developing in-store offers, try making it easier for shoppers to conduct transactions in whichever way is easy for them. For instance, shoppers’ location data can be used to display the nearest retail location on their smartphones, as well as mobile-only offers. Nordstrom, for instance, integrates nearby locations in the customer’s buying journey, allowing people to view how far a Nordstrom store is from their location. By making it convenient to visit a physical store, they help consumers overcome obstacles (like wanting to see an item in person), which enhances brand loyalty.
Think about the digital experiences you’ve seen in the industry, and then consider how you can up your retail marketing game. Use the tips mentioned above to serve your present, past, and future customers better.
