Category: Retail

Flexibility, convenience, pleasure and less uncertainty. These are some of the factors that affect the shopping habits of consumers. According to a report by PwC, it is pretty evident that consumers are constantly looking for ways to ease their shopping experience and maximize efficiency at the same time. Hence, retailers need to think beyond regular channels in order to win over consumers and gain competitive advantage. As consumers are increasingly becoming more keen on developing their own approaches to researching and purchasing, both online as well as in stores, it is inevitable that retailers be more aware and ahead in using technology to generate more sales.

Technology is definitely the main reason for the change in consumer behaviour as is evident from the PwC report. It goes on to describe four such technological disruptions in the retail world, which are totally influencing consumer behaviour. They are as follows:

1. Store evolution – According to the survey, almost 36% of the respondent shoppers said that the store remains the central point of shopping for them. They go to a physical store at least once in a week. This is pretty huge compared to the ones that shop online weekly, which are 20% through PC, 10% through a tablet and 11% through a mobile phone. While the store remains to be powerful, reliable and long-lived, online shopping is increasingly becoming more popular as well. When some of the reasons were examined for the rise in online shopping, there were two predominant ones: one was the ability to shop 24/7 and another was the convenience of not having to travel to a physical store. At the same time up to 60% of the respondents also said that the ability to see, touch and try merchandise before buying them was one of the major reasons that made in-store shopping popular too. Digital disruption is taking place as there is less impulsive buying these days as shoppers depend on e-commerce websites for purchase decisions.
2. Mobile technology – It was proven in an earlier report of the PwC, that many developing parts of the world are fast reaching or in some cases have even crossed the US rate of mobile phone adoption. In fact, two years ago, reports had shown that 30% of survey respondents had used a mobile phone to make a purchase and this year’s survey shows that 47% have. That is indeed a sign of disruption. Although, only a 29% said that they see themselves using a smartphone as the main tool for a making purchases, and only 3% of them feel smartphones to be their preferred tool for making payments and purchases. Putting this thought aside, another use to which mobile phones are being put is, comparison of prices and location of stores. It is increasingly becoming a major tool for such pre-purchase activities and serves to be medium of constant connection between the retailers and the consumers.
3. Social networks – When asked if their interaction on social media has led them to buy more or has affected their buying decisions, a major share of the respondents, that is, a 62% said yes, it has. It is evident in the report that the social media engagement of retailers and consumers has increased. About 34% of the respondents followed their favourite brands or retailers online, a 28% said they found brands they didn’t know about or developed an interest in and another 27% said they researched on a brand using others’ feedback on social media. All these figures indicate a significant increase from the previous years. Although, considering that the social media is a platform for connecting people world over, only a less majority of the people actually share their favourite products with their friends (15%) and only an 8% made the effort to connect with people who liked similar products. Aside from that, one of the major factors that attracted customers to a particular brand page was attractive deals or promotions, said by almost 45% of the respondents.
4. Demographic changes – Unsurprisingly, the use of social media is the most significant difference between the generation of people who have been raised in the midst of technology and social media and the other generations among the respondents. The former generation of people said to be using the social media for following brands, discovering new brands and researching, while the latter does not use it much. Another significant difference between the two generations is the use of mobile technology. When asked whether they engaged themselves in activities with a mobile device, again the “digital natives” said to be using them more often than the rest of the respondents. Most often they have used a mobile device for making payments, scanning QR codes, locating a store etc. They also seemed to want more of in-store technology as they chose in-store WiFi to be one of their favourite one. It is pretty evident from all these factors that the current generation has a different view towards shopping altogether, than the earlier generation.

All of these changes point to one thing: all the new technology, whether it is e-commerce sites, or the social media or mobile phones, they have changed the way customers shopped. There is definitely a huge impact on the retail physical stores due to such technological disruption. Customers are now looking for ways to further personalize their shopping experience and find easy ways of doing with the help of technology.

Image credits: TonyV3112 / Shutterstock.com

When customers get more and more digitally advanced, what else can retailers do, but go over the top to get savvier and stay ahead in the race towards serving them better? Most retailers these days are struggling to maintain their faces with new technologies and marketing programs in the digital side of things. If you thought, a little bit of social media marketing would do the trick, then you might be wrong. True, social media does play a huge role in spicing up your digital marketing spree, but is that enough?

The answer to that, would perhaps, have been ‘yes’, maybe a few years ago. But with advancements in technology as well as the minds of the people today, who seem to be in an endless search for convenience and speed, the answer is definitely ‘no’. So, what exactly is the deal with this digital marketing and the people-the consumers, and what does it take to stay in the ‘present’?

Consumers have started to expect more from their vendors and retailers are bound to live up to this expectation. Let’s see, for example, how digital marketing has changed in retail to stay relevant and eye-candy for its customers:

‘Personalizing’ at its peak

One of the most effective and influential techniques of digital marketing is personalizing. And by that, I don’t just mean sending out personal emails to your customers, or adding their first names in the emails you send out. The in-thing now, is of course iBeacons; the latest Bluetooth LE technology used in malls and retail stores to send out personalized offers and messages in real-time. But that is when your customers are in your store. What can you do to get personal outside of your store?
The depth of the word ‘personalizing’ is starting to take new forms these days. And one of those forms is facial recognition technology. According to a recent report published by Transparency Market Research, the global facial recognition market is expected to reach almost US $2.67 billion by 2022. That is how big it is getting. Retailers can use this technology to gather information about customers, their buying habits, purchasing power etc. and then use that for marketing purposes like, presenting them with special and unique offers and deals.
Facebook, the social media channel, has been using this technology for the past few years for the purpose of identifying and categorizing pictures, and this data is being shared among other retail and social media sites, which enables them to target ads to users. Facebook also uses information from other retail sites by scanning their cookies and displays ads to users accordingly.
However, privacy concerns regarding this technology are still being discussed and how much acceptable it is going to get among the consumers, still remains unclear.

From wearable to digital assistants

This is for companies that use mobile marketing for leveraging their marketing programs. You need to really keep up with the latest advancements in mobile technology if you want to make your marketing effective. A “mobile-first strategy” is what a lot of retail brands adopt these days. This is according to Aaron Shapiro, CEO of New York based digital agency Huge. Shapiro feels that voice-activated technology, digital assistants and wearable technology are all set to change the way customers interact with their favorite brands, especially now that most of them use mobile devices rather than desktop computers and laptops. About voice-activated marketing Shapiro says, “ In cases where the screens are going to be tiny or non-existent, voice is going to be the way that we communicate.” It means brands will have to come up with ways for their customers to communicate with them in a voice context.
Shapiro also feels that mobile technology is definitely going to evolve into wearable as well.

Display advertising: Metrics better than click-through-rate

Click-through-rates are actually, most often, thought of as the best measure of display advertisements’ effectiveness. However, there are several limitations to this particular approach. It ignores factors like brand awareness and educating prospects. According to Sean Callahan, Marketing Director, Bizo, there are several other metrics that marketers can use to measure the effectiveness of their display ads. Some of them are:
Brand recall – where in, you can carry out an online brand study to see the differences in the awareness of your brand among the people who have seen your ads and among the ones who haven’t.
Branded search – where in, you can measure the lift in the number of searches for your brand, while your online ad campaign is running.

Likewise, there are a number of other such metrics that you can use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns.

All of these digital marketing techniques and tips are already being used by a number of retailers and are well on their way towards revolutionizing the retail industry as a whole. In a matter of few years, what we provide for our customers now, will probably seem outdated or maybe even absolutely ineffective. Like i said, if you have to stay in the game till the end, you have got to play it like it has to be played.

A recent survey shows that almost 60% of retailers do not have sufficient reliable data to personalize their campaigns or ensure that their targeted marketing efforts are successful.

So how do you get “personal” with your consumers?

Talk to them, engage with their experiences; simply stated you need to understand them. And to help you with this you need specific data relating to your consumer behavior. Their habits, emotions, and preferences should be at the epitome of your strategy.

Retailers, use a multitude of processes to access these informations. You may use loyalty campaigns, freebies and lot more (almost anything your marketing team would tell you to do). Nevertheless, with all this effort, the base methodology is still the same. A response collection activity. Backed by Data Analytics and real-time responses. Such surveys help gather information about a consumer’s personal interests and opinions and thereby help target your sales effort.

However, such surveys alone, lately have not quite supported your targeting efforts. This is mainly because they have not been receiving the response that they were expected to generate. Customers and marketing environments are changing as we speak. Here are Five best practices to keep your surveys engaging and productive.

1. Keep the survey short and simple – It is human nature to always want things quick and easy. Hence, It is better to have a short survey that focuses on a single objective rather than one that covers multiple objectives. The reason is that long surveys are often ignored or left halfway through by the consumers. Short and simple surveys generally have higher response rates.
2. Keep the questions short – You need to keep your questions short and to the point. It is better to ask for one piece of information in one question. Or else, the customers are likely to lose focus or get confused. It is also better not to have too many possible answers for any given question.
3. Avoid jargon – You may know what it means maybe even your manager, but not necessarily your customer, You need to, as far as possible, avoid words that are industry-specific or technical. The consumers need not be familiar with such words. As mentioned before, it is always better to keep it simple.
4. Use close-ended questions whenever possible – Close-ended questions are easier to answer as well as analyze. Hence, as much as possible it is better to use close-ended questions involving answers like yes/no or a rating scale etc.
5. Consider offering incentives – A recent research by a survey firm showed that offering incentives enhanced response rates by 50% on an average. People are always likely to do something if they are appreciated for it. Hence, here we seek to appreciate them for having spent their time on our survey, by offering some kind of incentive.

These are some of the points that can help you roll out an effective survey.Technology also plays an important aspect of your response collection. As technology has become mainstream in almost every industry, consumer feedback is another area where the retail industry can make use of technology. Using a Survey app, like Reach Out can ease the whole process of feedback, both for the consumer as well the retailer. It makes feedback a more engaging experience than regular surveys.

The Net Promoter Score as founded by Bain and Company is the measure of how well a company treats its customers. It is basically based on the question ‘how likely is it that you would recommend our company or product to your friends?’. The question will have a rating scale of 1 to 10, 1 being not likely at all and 10 being extremely likely.
This helps companies in making important decisions and framing appropriate marketing and selling policies. Among the three kinds of customers a company would have, the net promoter score is the number or percentage of the promoters less the number or percentage of detractors. The promoters are of course the people who are likely to recommend the company or product to his/her friend and the detractors are the ones that are highly unlikely to do the same.

According to certain findings by the Net Promoter System, almost 80% of a company’s business referrals are through promoters and detractors are responsible for up to 80% of negative word of mouth. That said, it is quite clear how important the Net Promoter Score is for a company. Now how does it benefit an organization?

Using the Net Promoter Score can have a number of benefits:

• Increase customer loyalty – Gone are the days when companies used to measure the level of customer satisfaction for deciding how loyal they are. You need to know how happy they are and what they would do about it in order to analyze their loyalty and strategize selling and customer relationship techniques accordingly. This single question for assessing the net promoter score not only helps to know exactly what is in the minds of the customers but also helps to analyze the effects of the changes you make in your techniques later on.
• Increase positive word of mouth – This score gives you an idea about how much of your customers are promoters of your company. That is, how many of them are likely to speak positively about your company and advocate it. For example, a score of 50% means almost half of your customers are happy and would spread that word. You can leverage such customer advocates and generate referral leads and thereby increase your customer base.
• Decrease customer churn rate – Several pieces of research by Bain and Company have proved that promoters have generally lesser tendency to defect when compared to other customers. Hence, they are likely to have a longer-lasting relationship with your company. This means you can safely invest in improving such relationships and turning more detractors into promoters and reduce customer churn. Since customer acquisition costs are always on the rise, it would be wise to reduce customer churn and improve business.
• Increase revenue and customer lifetime value – Since the Net Promoter Score helps to increase the number of promoters, it in turn helps to increase your revenue. According to findings by Bain and Company, promoters are likely to spend more on new offers and products than the detractors. Hence, it would be worthwhile to have more of them. They are found to be less price sensitive too, which means they would not be bothered about how much they spend when it comes to their purchases. And as mentioned before, they account for a majority of referrals and thereby a larger customer base.

Apart from all these factors, promoters are the loyal customers of a company. They have higher customer lifetime value than other customers. Hence, for every company such customers are quite useful to increase customer base and also profits. Assessing the Net Promoter Score can practically help you in every way in growing your business.

Interested in how you can implement and identify a Net Promoter Score for your business? Look at how solutions such as ReachOut automates key functions of customer engagement and helps run your business better.