Online And In-store Experience : Bridging The Gap
2018 is all about the seamless, multi-channeled and personalized customer experience. Using 2017 as a cautionary tale, brands like Macy’s and VF Corporation, under which The North Face brand falls, are more and more eager to provide their clients the best online and in-store experience ever seen. The next challenge for retailers is to be able to merge efficiently these two channels in order to reach new customers and encourage brand loyalty.
Tech Is The Solution
Tracking users’ mobile activity to identify shopping behaviours is non-negotiable. Every connected customer’s dream is to have immediate access to what he needs, when he needs it. He also thrives to be understood and considered as an individual by the brands he cherishes. Now is the time to seize opportunity to make a great impact on your client by creating a connected retail experience. Through digital loyalty programs, brands like American Eagle Outfitters, with its AEO Connected feature, provide perks and rewards to their customers as a way to engage with them and create repeated business and generate more sales by tailoring and anticipating their needs before they’re even aware of them.
Close The Gap Between Online And In-store Experience
By using the right tools and simplifying shopping experience, customers will know that retailers value their time. As they browse and shop online and offline interchangeably and demand enormous flexibility when it comes to choosing where, when and how they buy, retailers have no other choice than to leverage their in-store experience through the use of tech. The goal here is a smooth transition from online to in-store shopping by offering customers an immersive and seamless experience. To be able to achieve that, retailers need to use effective and sensitive data collection tools, that will help them know their customers by heart. For example, by using a tool like Zenreach, retailers will know how many times a said customer browsed into the website or made a in-store purchase. They will receive a heads-up if a regular customer stops coming by for a given period of time. Having access to this kind of data allows the retailer to send curated and tailored offers to their clients and engage into a real and meaningful communication.
Another crucial element is that local inventory needs to be updated proficiently in order to provide correct information to potential buyers. Right now, customers tend to browse on several websites in order to find their desired item, and then go on google to find the nearest store where they can go buy it. This kind of Google search mostly returns ecommerce sites and not local stores. This lack of real time information on inventory is a problem retailers must address in order to reduce loss of sales opportunities and gain new customers.
AI to The Rescue!
According to 2017 findings by McKinsey & Company, brands who place AI at the core of their business strategies could reduce forecasting errors by up to 50 percent, and therefore avoid some major profit losses.
Maurices and Adidas provide their customers with a personal digital stylist under the technology of FindMine, which uses AI to create a wardrobe by suggesting additional items that are specially curated to the shopper’s interests, based on their browsing history and profile.
Although we’ve insisted on the importance of combining both online and offline experiences, the main goal is to help customers reduce the scope of their search, making their lives easier, and in the process, make retail stores more intuitive and brands more attractive. The entire purchase process needs to be curated and adapted to each and single buyer. New Balance and Ecco, two major footwear retailers, well understood the power of tailor fit shopping experiences. They both use Swedish technology Volumental which, with the help of 3D scanning, creates foot avatars that are then immediately transferred to mobile devices and help customers determine the shoes that best fit their needs and taste. In the same vein, Bauer rolled out last fall Skate Lab which helps hockey players selecting the right skates.
By creating a more personal and targeted experience, retailers will achieve efficient, constant and enriched engagement. Using data to listen to your customers’ needs, and then taking action, is the key that brands will need to use in order to bridge the gap between online and in-store experience.
