How to improve a retail app?
10 ways to make an e-commerce project from your store
This is the final article on how you can upgrade (or what it’s worth doing!) a chain store application to get additional profit. You can read the previous ones here:
How to improve your retail app? 11 ways to connect online and offline business
How to improve your retail app? 9 ways to increase customer loyalty
Today I will tell you how to make an E-commerce project out of an offline business. Such radical methods had to be resorted to in 2020, when the whole world was swept by a pandemic — and only couriers, sellers or chefs could move freely through the streets.
On the other hand, going online is an opportunity to optimize rental costs, provide a wider range of products, and reduce staff.
And on the third — to provide customers with a better and more advanced service. After all, when there are sufficiently large players on the market, you can compete with them only with the help of a unique product or personalized services, thereby increasing audience loyalty. So what is this functionality?
Subscription
Subscriptions are becoming more familiar to residents of large cities. They allow you to save a lot, both time and money. And they get rid of impulsive purchases of those who cannot resist a chocolate bar at the checkout. Of course, it is not possible to subscribe to absolutely all products, but it is easy to automate the purchase of basic things, for example, household or favorite products.
Pickup
Fuel prices began to rise too quickly, and many wealthy consumers, who already got used to online shopping during the pandemic, began to look for a compromise. This is how the option of self-delivery from ordinary supermarkets appeared (and not only from dark stores, as it was before).
Pre-order
One of our clients has a specific product — fish and seafood — many positions are quickly sold out, and deliveries do not occur every day. Therefore, it was decided to add the pre-order option and the ability to always see the current delivery calendar. By itself, it does not bring direct profit, but it affects the love of customers for the brand.
And for some users, a subscription to supplies may be relevant. For example, for restaurant chefs and sushi chefs who constantly buy products.
Discounted food packages
This story is about money. If a person does not go to a real store, how can he be tempted to buy something extra? Make him an offer he can’t refuse. For example, autumn has come, the evenings are getting colder and you can already safely offer customers sets for mulled wine. Let him already have, for example, cinnamon at home, but the whole set is still cheaper to buy as a whole than separately.
You can show such sets in a personalized way, based on the analytics of the app user’s purchases. And you can also make them on thematic occasions: “First of September”, “Valentine’s Day”, “New Year”, etc.
Personalized Sales
This is an alternative to food packages. Here you do not have to think much, it is enough to offer a discount on those positions that are in demand by a particular person. And then sales will be higher than on Black Fridays.
Private notes and bookmarks
How often do you buy a product, get disappointed in the taste, and after a while forget about it and buy again? Especially for these, one of our customers added the ability to make notes and bookmark your favorite products. This is especially good for a highly specialized business — for example, for a chain of beer stores. There are hundreds of varieties, and how to remember which one is bitter, sour, strong, tart?
Gamification in the app
Gamification elements will help make your customers spend more. Depict visually how much more you need to buy in order to get some kind of achievement and thereby stimulate demand. For example, in the “Beerpoint” chain of stores, every 100 liters sold is a gift. That is, not specifically your 100 liter, but in some store.
In-Stock status
Show how much product is left at a particular point. There is no need to ask the cashier. Make an understandable toolbar, synchronize it with database and get loyal customers who did not come to the store for goods that are not there.
Gastronomic sets/pairs
A special and now fashionable way of upselling when you are in a retail business is “Usually bought with this product”. I want to point out that it’s worth thinking over the algorithm well so that it doesn’t turn out that you most often buy fish with milk. In order not to complicate the scheme, introduce “gastronomic pairs/sets” — and so you will be offered wine for cheese, spices for meat, tomato paste for pasta, etc.
Shopping statistics and analytics
Considering the health trend that is getting stronger every year, you can supplement the application with analytics that, based on your purchases, will visualize information, for example, whether you are on a diet, whether you are getting the required amount of protein, how much alcohol you consume, etc.
Of course, this may seem like an unnecessary feature to some, but through such data it is also possible to influence buyers — to show care, make up-selling, form a loyal audience. And definitely, with this approach, you will stand out from the competition.
In general, as practice has shown, if you sit and think hard, then filling the application with features that will be important for your customers is quite easy. Especially when you know your target audience well. But sometimes you can really fantasize and there will be things like “Meet people who buy similar products a.k.a Tinder” or “Foodstagram, in which people will post pictures of dishes prepared from products bought in this supermarket.”
In general, this entire series of articles aims to tell what a great service can be, how it can influence purchasing power and even change the world, making consumption conscious and healthy.
