GAME IS ON, ARE YOU AWARE?
A body-check for future retail stores
By hearing more and more buzzwords about “the next generation retail”, you should have realized that the hunger game in retail industry has already started. If not, check out our former post about the Unified Commerce and have a taste of it! Now, ask yourselves these questions and see if you are catching up with your competitors.

1) Do you provide wifi access in the stores?
Given that today the generation with the most buying power is a group of heavy internet — especially mobile phone — users, an active and fast guest wifi is definitely a plus for the customer experience. Besides that, Guest Wi-Fi is a major source of in-store customer data collecting, which can dramatically improve the reliability of the two tools mentioned above.
Guest Wi-Fi is proven to be helpful for increasing in-store visits.
2) Can you recognize your loyal customers the second when they step in?
Knowing your customers is arguably the most important task for retailers, and maybe for all business. Imagine the shop assistant get all information of the customer the second when he steps into the store. How easy would it be for your staff to start a conversation and provide personalised recommendations? It empowers you to focus on making your customer experience exceptional with the support of a virtual assistant to sell the right products. On the contrary, the shop assistant standing beside one of your loyal customer on e-store asking questions about size or color preferences, which are data available in the e-store platform, is just a waste of time and interfering the shopping experience.
Individual customer profile is a powerful weapon for retailers to store customer data and greatly improve customer experiences.

3) Can you track each customer’s in-store route and make use of them?
The decision making process of a purchase can be driven by rational thinking. However, the moment a person make the decision to pay for something, especially fashion goods, is mainly driven by emotions. Sometimes when a customer is standing in front of a product for a long time struggling, a small discount or few words of compliments from a shop assistant will push him to take out his wallet. The discount rate, the moment to push that discount, which one of your in-store staff should approve and the timing to approve the customer, are tricky. By understanding the customer’s route and standing time, it can be easier.
In-store Traffic Analysis is another thing up the sleeves to conduct efficient proximity marketing and to collect data for later store management.
4) Can you connect your e-store and the physical stores and manage them simultaneously?
Separating the e-commerce section and the retail store section is wasting a huge amount of insightful data. Integrating and sorting out the online data and in-store data will generate powerful insights for marketing and provide a coherent shopping experience. Besides, one single inventory management or sales management system for e-store and all physical stores cuts down the management effort to 50%.
Integrating online and offline is the base of all future retail stores.

5) Can you provide easy-to-get product detailed information that customers want?
Usually, customers need to ask for help to find certain products that they checked on e-stores or to get introduction of the materials, available sizes, etc. While some people enjoy talking to the shop assistants, the others might find it convenient and thoughtful if they can easily get info themselves on digital signages, etc. This also saves the staffs a lot of time repeating the same basic information of products and spend more time for “meaningful” talks.
Clear product information is a must of product showcasing and it can be done way better with the help with some technology.
So, how many “yes” do you have for these answers? Of course, this is only some of the fundamental features that a successful future store should have. With Stentle’s knowledge and expertise, you can get some profound and best-in-class opinions and help on your business. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you are interest!
BTW, are you intrigued by the technologies mentioned in this article? We’ll have another piece to talk about some emerging or thriving technologies used in future stores. Stay tuned!
About Stentle
Stentle has just been born and already has a long story to tell. This is the paradox of having a team with over 40 years of experience in e-commerce, industry evolving towards new forms and solutions such as omnichannel dynamics.
The barriers between physical and online store are disappearing. The selling point as we understand it today will soon be transformed by tools that facilitate and support the shopping experience at every moment. The total union between reality and the virtual world. Stentle is leading this change, to redesign the store of tomorrow.
