Why Beacons Are the Next Big Thing
There’s a war being fought in retail between the brick-and-mortar store fronts, and the e-commerce players. Physical stores have had to beat back e-commerce competitors, which often offer lower prices for products, due in large part to low overhead costs. Slowly but surely, e-commerce is nibbling away at the retail pie: The fourth quarter 2014 e-commerce estimate from the census bureau increased 14.6% from the fourth quarter of 2013, while total retail sales increased 3.7% in the same period. E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2014 accounted for 6.7% of total sales. But brick and mortars are fighting back with beacon technology.
Business Insider recently reported it expects beacons to directly influence more than $4 billion worth of U.S. retail sales this year at top retailers, or 1% of the total). That number could climb tenfold by 2016. In particular, beacons — which alert shoppers to deals, specials and discounts on in-store merchandise, while the customer is in close proximity to the item — are the next evolutionary phase in store operations and can become integral parts of loyalty programs. Repeat shoppers are rewarded with personalized offers, generated via the beacon technology.
Beacons push out messages to shoppers, rather than gather data. Once shoppers “opt-in” to the location-based marketing program, their smartphones can detect the beacons. The smartphone relays a “VIP in store” message back to the beacon, which directs the information to a store associate’s mobile retail management device, and the store associate then personally greets the loyal patron.
Beacons could beat back much of the competition from e-commerce merchants because, despite online shopping’s growing popularity, approximately 90% of what people buy still comes out of brick-and-mortar locations, according to Adweek. In addition to burnishing loyalty programs, beacon technology, with its broadcast capability, can successfully entice passersby to come in. That is a clear and distinct advantage over e-commerce retailers, which must rely on search engines and word of mouth primarily.
Beacons can broadcast a “consider stopping in” message, which a shopper receives on his or her smartphone. That can drive new customers, who may not otherwise come into a store. An even more directed effort can be obtained through hyper-local marketing, which provides very specific messages to very specific customers.
Despite the growth in e-commerce, brick and mortars are stepping up the offensive by employing beacon technologies to communicate to shoppers the deals they just shouldn’t be passing by.
