Retailers nowadays are exposed to more and more pressure from e-commerce and its giants like Amazon. Digital channels for shopping are increasingly penetrating the markets of classical brick and mortar stores.
However, web-based services would never be able to provide us with one aspect of the classical way of shopping: the touch and feel experience. Only a physical store can satisfy the desire for “instant ownership”, creating a great feeling of leaving a shop with the new product in hands.
Brick and Mortar stores should, however, take active measures to adapt to their web based competitors by bringing some of the digital world into their stores.
Let’s have a look at the benefits of shopping online. For me, that is to a certain extent transparency, mostly transparency of price. Furthermore, I like to browse through reviews to make sure that my product is as good as I want it to be, as well as look through further information on the product and on similar ones. Moreover, I might look for gadgets that I can add to my potential purchase. Last but not least, there is of course the convenience of not leaving my apartment.
Now, it is hard to compete with the last point. However, the other advantages of online shopping can be easily replicated within a classical store by bringing in an information access point – The Interactive In-Store Experience. These can come in various ways but serve the needs of most customers best in form of Digital Displays.
- Which features have to be part of the Interactive In-Store Experience in order to truly add value to a customer?
- 1. The interface has to be attractive, intuitive and easy to navigate. Nobody likes to play around with a piece of technology that frustrates you after the first 2 clicks.
- 2. It has to be easy to access the right information within seconds.
- 3. It has to contain all the information related to the product of interest just one touch away. After all, information is what I am looking for.
- 4. Reviews should be part of it so I don’t have to rely solely on the retailers’ word.
- 5. If the product is out of stock, it should show me not only in which other store I can find it, but also the shortest way to this location.
- Which features have to be part of the Interactive In-Store Experience in order to truly add value to a retailer?
- 1. The product should attract customers.
- 2. The Software should promote sales preferably up selling and cross selling
- 3. It should present customers with additional information, important to the store, such as corporate culture, their recent green initiatives etc.
- 4. The Installation has to be adaptable towards the retailers’ needs, such as the implementation of inventory databases, POS or Loyalty databases.
- 5. The Display should attract customers to come back and shop with this retailer again.
- All in all it has to be both useful and enjoyable experience for the customer.
To sum it up, by offering a part of the digital world to their customers in the right way, retailers have a better chance to compete with their web-based competitors. Such an integration of the physical and digital approach would attract customers back to the stores and allow them to experience the best of both worlds.
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