3 Reasons Why Retailers Need Stores In a Digital Age
In an increasingly competitive retail environment, finding the right marketing mix — one that optimizes costs, while increasing brand sentiment, sales and customer lifetime value — is critical to your business. And while investments in digital and mobile marketing continue to grow, there’s no denying that investments in brick-and-mortar stores are still an essential part of the retail marketing mix — especially as 85% of consumers prefer to shop in person.
In reality, the store is your brand’s best chance to stand apart from online-only up-and-comers, and giants like Amazon. Not only does it provide an opportunity to connect with consumers in a meaningful and memorable way, but it also facilitates unique opportunities to drive sales, while empowering you to gather real-time, location-specific data that will help you drive a more personalized and effective customer experience.
Brick and Mortar Drives Brand Sentiment
Retail marketers have long known that in a saturated market, one of the most difficult things to do is to cut through the noise with the perfect brand message. This has gotten even more difficult with the rise of digital marketing channels, which have reduced marketing costs, and provided easy-to-use tools that help emerging brands grab the attention of an increasingly millennial audience.
While online ads and social media have made it easier to get brand messages in front of potential customers, Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter only tell half the story. Social media and digital ads can’t physically engage your customers, or provide memorable experiences of your products, services and people. You can’t show customers how engaging and consultatory your employees are through a website, or guarantee the high quality of your products through pictures and reviews. Only the store provides a tangible customer experience centered around both quality products and services.
And even if you are delivering a strong and differentiated brand message online, connecting the content you create to an authentic and delightful brick-and-mortar experience gives you the perfect opportunity to build a lasting perception of your brand. The ability to interact with products, engage in a social environment or be inspired by highly visual and interactive showrooms makes physical stores an excellent tool for driving positive sentiment and value.
Brick and Mortar Drives Sales
As more online-only retailers are moving from clicks-to-bricks, the evidence is mounting that physical stores are indispensable to retail revenue. Both younger and older generations still demand a shopping experience that allows them to see, touch, and smell a product before they buy it.
Two-thirds of consumers say interacting with a product is critical in their purchasing decision, while 50 percent want the instant gratification of taking a purchase home with them immediately. Consumers also continue to show a strong preference toward making major purchases in-person, rejecting online purchases of high-value products.
In addition to being a preferred shopping channel, brick-and-mortar stores give you the opportunity to highlight your most important differentiator — your people. Friendly, engaged employees give shoppers the opportunity to build a truly personal relationship with your brand, while getting personalized support during their shopping experience. How important is this to consumers? A staggering 90% say they’re more likely to purchase a product if assisted by a knowledgeable associate.
While online recommendation engines effectively present upsell and cross-sell opportunities, engaged employees at a physical store are even more powerful in driving decisions — a reality that has forced many major digital brands to invest in live stores.
Brick and Mortar Drives Data
84% of consumers think retailers need to do a better job of creating a seamless omnichannel experience. But as consumers increasingly expect to interact with brands via email, SMS, social media and wearable devices, delivering personalized and consistent brand experiences through a host of channels is an incredible challenge.
With 71% of consumers having one or more retailer’s mobile apps on their phones — and 74% of consumers accessing their downloaded apps regularly, savvy retailers are taking a mobile-first strategy, augmenting conventional sales and promotions with mobile applications that entice existing customers to stores, and empower retailers to capture data about how customers evaluate a brand outside the store. Meanwhile, surprising new advancements in humanoid robotics allow retailers to leverage sentiment analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to engage customers and capture data in-store.
Combined with a strong in-store presence, new technologies like mobile and AI give innovative retailers a huge advantage in understanding and mastering the entire omnichannel customer journey. With accurate location and sentiment data, you have a unique ability to deliver more effectively timed mobile ads, location-based promotions and personalized marketing campaigns. This allows you to use all of your channels together in concert to drive additional sales, and a more authentic customer experience.
Innovate To Drive In-Store Performance
Brick-and-mortar stores give you a unique opportunity to create meaningful relationships with your customers and show off your commitment to superior service. That’s why they are an indispensable and resilient channel for growing retail companies.
But in order to reap the benefits, it’s not enough to maintain the in-store status quo. You must maximize in-store differentiators — like your employees — while delivering an integrated online and offline experience, and taking advantage of innovations in technology to maximize your investments.
To learn more about how advancements in humanoid robotics can create a revenue-driving customer experience in your store, check out this interview with Steve Carlin, SoftBank Robotics’ Chief Strategy Officer. To Learn more about Pepper visit www.softbankrobotics.com
