Omnichannel is about making it easy for customers to buy from you, get their products from you, and make returns.
A shopper’s purchase journey goes through multiple stages and retailers must think through the omnichannel experience at each phase.
PRODUCT RESEARCH PHASE How do the online and in-store experiences complement each other to help shoppers get a tangible feel for the products they’re exploring?
PRODUCT PURCHASE PHASE How can we best simplify the path to purchase to win more sales and avoid losing customers due to out of stocks or poor experiences?
PRODUCT FULFILLMENT PHASE What are cost-effective ways to get customers what they’ve ordered?
PRODUCT RETURN PHASE How can we streamline the omnichannel returns experience for shoppers?
Selling online is relatively new for luxury retail but is growing quickly as technologies have allowed retailers to reflect online the personalized service lux shoppers experience in-store.
Omnichannel strategies for luxury are considering continuity of in-store and online elements in a customer’s journey to draw on strengths from either channel for a more holistic, seamless experience.
Give your sales associates quick access to a customer’s profile and shopping history in Retail Pro Prism so they can be better informed when making recommendations.
Look up inventory at other store locations to see whether they have the particular size or color the customer wants with full inventory availability visible in Retail Pro POS.
Always say YES
Digital lookbook
Use inventory images in your Retail Pro mobile POS as an endless aisle lookbook to help your customer pick out and order items you don’t carry in store.
Tie your purchasing journey and communications together across channels by integrating all your customer-facing tools on the Retail Pro POS software platform.
With the drastic shift in consumer spending and behavior during the pandemic, customer experience is on the line.
A new report from AppCard and Retail Pro shows the strong financial and customer retention results of retailers using AppCard together with Retail Pro POS who adopted proactive, personalized marketing strategies to stay connected with their shoppers during the pandemic.
Watch this webinar from Retail Pro and AppCard for an inside look at:
The pandemic-time impact of loyalty engagement on three different retail verticals — apparel, cosmetics and footwear
Top personalization and targeted points redemption strategies that are driving results now
How you can advance key metrics like sales, average ticket, new shoppers generated, points earned, and points redeemed
About AppCard®
AppCard is a personalized marketing and rewards platform that uses smart data capture and machine learning to analyze, target, and engage with customers. AppCard is fully integrated with Retail Pro, so shoppers automatically get rewards for their purchases after every transaction. Using AppCard’s marketing tools, retailers can leverage SKU-level purchase information to deliver highly targeted offers via email, SMS/text message, or push notification.
The struggle is real for customers hoping to take some of the legwork out of shopping by researching products online before heading to a store – only to make the drive and discover the product they decided on isn’t available, as it is in omnichannel experiences they have at other stores.
For retailers, such deflating experiences can mean a loss of loyal customers as well as a damaged reputation.
As shoppers become more strapped for leisure time and less willing to browse for hours just for fun, connecting a physical and digital store experience is increasingly critical for retail longevity.
It’s all about what some refer to as Retail FOMO: That is, customers’ fear of missing out on things they want, and retailers’ fear of missing a sale.
Here are 6 ways you can connect your physical and digital store experiences with Retail Pro Prism POS and retail management software to remove some of the friction shoppers are experiencing while retailers are building their omnichannel strategies.
1. Show in-store stock availability online
Research suggests that roughly a quarter of customers won’t visit a store if they aren’t sure what they are looking for is available. In addition, more than half will leave a store disappointed if they can’t find the item they had in mind.
One way to avoid that is by showing customers stock availability online. That way e-window shoppers can be assured that what they are looking for is available when they visit.
And, in the unfortunate case that a particular item is sold moments before a shopper arrives, enabling in-store ordering for free home delivery is one way to compensate the customer.
Retail Pro Prism has accessible APIs and hundreds of Plugins and integrations on the Retail Pro App Market to help retailers connect their ecommerce with inventory information in Retail Pro.
The ability to straightforwardly integrate any technology retailers already use (or might choose to use in the future) gives retailers control over decisions like which platform will be the data master through which they’ll reference and report on stock availability and needs across all their store locations, including ecommerce.
2. Show off your full selection with endless aisle
Endless aisle can accommodate retailers that, often because of a small physical footprint, can’t stock a wide range of products.
The technology lets customers virtually browse or order a wide range of products that are either out of stock or not sold in-store and have them shipped to the store or their home.
Because Retail Pro Prism is browser-based software and not solely a mobile or desktop app, retailers can run Retail Pro both on their desktop computer or laptop at the till – or on an iPad or other mobile device so that sales associates can access inventory information when helping customers on the sales floor.
So when a product is not available at this store, sales associates can easily show customers the item images for the product they want and place an order for them, saving the sale.
In addition to providing a better customer experience, providing inventory information drives customers into stores, opening the door to additional purchases.
Impulse buys are more common for shoppers at brick-and-mortar retailers, because those stores can influence customer shopping experiences by tailoring layout and staffing decisions based on their clientele.
According to A.T. Kearney, 40 percent of customers make unplanned purchases at physical stores and spend more money, compared to 25 percent of online shoppers.
4. Reward their loyalty across channels
Aligning physical and digital stores also means ensuring that shopping benefits are equivalent.
Loyalty rewards should be earned in the same manner, for example, and coupons should be valid online and in-person. Being a rewards member should be the ultimate frictionless experience.
Using an integrated loyalty platform like AppCard or OptCulture with Retail Pro Prism not only saves your associates and customers time at checkout when handling loyalty, but also ties in the POS transaction data with your loyalty platform so you can run campaigns based on actual purchase data.
Despite the best intentions of retailers and customers, sometimes merchandise must be returned. How a retailer handles this onerous process with the customer is reflective of its overall commitment to customer service.
By working through the kinks for in-store returns of online purchases, retailers can offer their shoppers a less stressful initial purchasing experience, because they are assured that if they are unsatisfied, returning is a simple process.
Because all inventory items (whether online or in-store) would have been created in Retail Pro Prism and then used to populate a retailer’s online inventory when integrated, retailers will be able to accept the online inventory without the backend hassle of accounting for online versus in-store purchase origin.
Once the item is returned, it can be assimilated into the physical store inventory, accounted for and ready to be resold.
6. Help your store staff get to know your omnichannel shoppers
When a customer begins a journey online, or has a history of shopping through a retailer’s online channel, that data can and should be used to personalize the in-store shopping experience.
By analyzing and connecting transactional data from their Retail Pro POS into one holistic view, retailers can learn how often a customer shops, what they purchased, where they are from, how much they spend across different channels, and whether they are new or repeat buyers.
That can help inform associates in the physical store as they engage with shoppers, as well as help form future decisions for an omnichannel product and customer engagement strategy, especially when retailers use an integrated business intelligence and visual analytics solution with the rich data they collect at the Retail Pro Prism point of sale.
The information conduit flows both ways now, not just as a funnel into one channel or another, so retailers can fix broken customer journeys and convert more sales, improve efficiency and increase loyalty.
Bringing both worlds together – digital and physical – will mean some parts of the journey will still have bumps along the way.
But addressing the operational challenges in each of these areas will help retailers smooth some of the friction that arises as they build their omnichannel strategy.
Going to the
2022 Retail Technology Show?
26-27 April 2022 | Olympia, London | Stand 6e28
About Pinnaca Retail & IT Solutions
Founded in 2015, Pinnaca Retail & IT Solutions is a family-run business offering retail solutions, specialist management consultancy and IT services. Our company is UK based, with offices in London, and a client base across the globe.
We work with all levels of business to define and develop strategies focused on our clients’ needs and objectives. Our tailored solutions are developed and optimised to fulfil your key business demands.
Over time we have added to our 20 years’ experience in the field and built up a team of experts, with a wide range of experience and in-depth knowledge, who are eager to help your business succeed and grow.
About DataScan Retail Systems
Datascan Retail Systems are a leading UK and European supplier of solutions to the retail sector, from small businesses through to mid-tier and international enterprises. We have vast experience in the analysis and design of retail IT and the implementation of EPOS and Stock Control Systems and provide all the services required to plan, implement and maintain an effective Retail Management System. We are committed to match the Retail Pro System to the exact needs of the retailer, utilising our development, training and help desk teams.
About RIOT
RIOT is turning traditional RFID solutions for retail on their head with RIOT Insight. Insight is RIOT’s real-time inventory accuracy service offered as a simple but powerful add-on to a retailer’s existing systems. 100% inventory accuracy to support Omni-channel is now yours on demand.
About PAR
PAR Technology Corporation provides industry leading software and hardware solutions that are always there when you need them but never in your way.
State of the Art Point of Sale Systems.
Tablets and Portable Devices.
About XRetail
XRETAIL is a Global leader in Unified Commerce solutions, with a prime mission to empower enterprise retailers by helping to boost their sales and retain their clients. Through state-of-the-art technologies, integrations, and solutions, the XRETAIL platform creates unified sales channels including eCommerce, Mobile commerce, and Social commerce. XRETAIL’s Cloud-based platform creates seamless end-to-end solutions allowing enterprise retailers to blend brick-and-mortar and digital retailing into one unified platform, with notably enhanced customer experience both online and offline.
About Loqate
Combining leading technology with the richest data, Loqate provides several solutions to help bring businesses across the globe closer to their customers:
Address Validation A faster, easier way to capture and verify addresses in real-time for your online forms and checkouts.
Email validation Increase email delivery rates, boost customer marketing and reduce bogus registration when you verify email addresses upfront.
Mobile & phone validation Take the guesswork out of reaching customers. Capture the right phone number, mobile or landline at the point of entry.
Data maintenance The foundation of any customer management strategy, Loqate’s cleansing and maintenance software helps build lasting customer relationships.
Even before COVID-19 forced retailers to embrace a “new normal,” the retail landscape was changing.
Retailers were already evolving to better understand their customers’ preferred ways of shopping — the pandemic just encouraged them to move more quickly and to embrace alternate channels of commerce.
Here are a few ways retailers originally introduced to keep customers coming, but are likely to continue because of their benefits.
Transforming stores from customer-side to supply-side
Early on in the pandemic, retail was hit with a lockdown that effectively closed storefronts.
Innovative brick and mortars transformed from being customer touchpoint locations to becoming crucial nodes in the supply system.
Temporarily closed sites became mini warehouses that could deliver products ordered online or offering click-and-collect services.
Others tested automated fulfillment centers at the back of existing stores. That flexibility made store space more productive, something retailers continue to assess.
Accelerated ecommerce growth
With mandated store closings of physical locations, retailers focused on their ecommerce channels.
For example, fewer than one in five Western European consumers had purchased groceries online before the pandemic.
Although grocery stores were considered essential businesses and allowed to remain open during lockdown, hours of operation were reduced due primarily to low staffing, and customers felt safer ordering online and either picking up in person or having packages delivered.
For Western Europe, the impact was dramatic: According to the consultancy Alix Partners, the pandemic may have advanced those countries four to five years into the future.
A significant number of those customers who had never bought food or groceries online are likely to continue doing so, which in turn led retailers to implement digital payment methods.
Contactless payments
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels
In the past 15 months, the use of cash declined, due to concerns it was a means of spreading COVID-19 and other germs.
The surge in the demand for contactless payment led to outstanding performances for major companies. The offering is shifting from being “nice-to-have” to being essential.
During the past few years, U.S. shoppers have gradually decreased their use of cash.
In 2019, Experian reported that 1-in-10 millennials used their digital wallet for every purchase.
There has already been a notable decrease in cash usage over the past few years.
The Forrester/NRF State of Retail Payments study, released last August, found 67 percent of retailers surveyed now accept some type of no-touch payment.
That figure includes 58 percent accepting contactless cards that can be waved past a card reader or tapped on the reader, up from 40 percent in 2019.
In addition, 56 percent take digital wallet payments on mobile phones, an increase from 44 percent.
The corona virus caused unprecedented disruption, innovative and flexible retailers created ways to continue to provide customers the products and services they needed in ways that were accessible.
They learned how to successfully navigate through difficult circumstances while still accommodating customer requests.
Those types of actions build trust, which is an essential part of getting through any crisis.
The amount of information collected from an in-store POS is vast. Coupled with e-commerce data gathered from online transactions, retailers can glean a pretty accurate picture of who their customers really are: their tastes, sizes, socio-economic status and demographics.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to correlate all of that information to provide an efficient, personalized experience that caters to shoppers’ preferences.
Numerous companies are investing significantly in the technology; Meticulous Research predicts the global AI in retail market will grow 35.9% between 2019 and 2025, reaching $15.3 billion.
AI can help discern the patterns in consumer behavior that can answer the questions on every retailer’s mind: how do we keep shoppers coming back?
AI for shopper convenience
Using AI to make sense of customer information can help retailers create efficient shopping experiences, whether that’s at a physical retail location or online.
These types of retailer-directed experiences are particularly appealing to millennials, the first digitally native generation.
In general, the fact that millennials gravitate toward digital-first approaches puts retailers and brands under pressure to continually innovate; businesses are striving not only to know what the customers want before they reach the store, but also to have it readily available.
Retailers that create an atmosphere of convenience and ease are generally rewarded with repeat business.
That was perhaps most evident at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when customers turned to e-commerce because of the ease of filling their shopping needs, from clothing to groceries to cleaning supplies. For 15 months, online ordering surged.
In response, brick and mortar retailers expanded their channels, and many that once eschewed online orders quickly found significant revenue gains by allowing customers to place orders online and collect them curbside.
Now, as retailers emerge from the past year with new methods of meeting customer needs, they also have found themselves possessing significantly more shopper data.
Personalized promotions
Retailers can use AI to build effective marketing campaigns that can not only help shoppers find the products they are looking for, but also to discover others they didn’t even know they wanted.
Product intelligence plus customer data combined with AI can produce targeted marketing and promotions that can encourage loyalty, increase return visits, and increase conversion rates.
Online, AI can help decrease bounce rates and improve engagement on the website by using personalized recommendations and banners.
AI can help retailers provide the personalized experience customers receive online when they are shopping in stores.
For example, AI cameras and sensors can record when an item is placed back after a customer selects it.
If that action is a trend, the manager can decide if the item should be displayed elsewhere, in an effort to provide it more visibility.
Better forecasting
AI-driven tools analyzing Retail Pro POS data help retailers understand who their consumers are, which allows them to provide personalized offers and deals.
Business analytics provide valuable insight into customer demographics, peak operation hours, buying trends and inventory.
Retailers can examine purchasing history from POS transactions to determine what influences customers’ buying habits.
By integrating automation from AI-driven POS systems in multiple sales channels — online, in-store, apps, etc. — retailers can more clearly understand their customers’ experiences and continue to refine them to better suit their needs.
Direct to consumer (DTC) products have been wildly popular in the past few years, and as they slowly infiltrate big box retailers’ shelves, brands such as Casper, Harry’s and Bonobos are gaining more attention and getting an even bigger sales boost.
But traditional retailers are learning from them as well.
For the biggest retailers, partnering with DTC has been mutually beneficial. Walmart bought men’s fashion retailer Bonobos in 2017 for $310 million. Target is partnering with Harry’s to sell the well-made, discount-priced razors in stores, as well as Casper mattresses — which can also be found in top-tier stores such as Nordstrom’s.
Mutual gains
Part of the draw of those and many other DTC brands is their popularity: They will drive customers into stores and online. Forging partnerships with newer, more sought-after brands helps retailers attract and create relationships with a new segment of shoppers who may not have otherwise shopped with them.
In addition, what big retailers such as Walmart, Target and Nordstrom’s can gain from well-established DTC brands is digital expertise. These products have successfully launched and sold products online with no physical stores. They are marketing powerhouses, and big box stores are learning from their strategies, particularly for their own private-label merchandise. For example, Target’s partnership with Harry’s spurred it to step up its men’s grooming selection by expanding its own Goodfellow & Co’s offering to more than 30 products. (Target is clearly focusing on the segment and rounding out its offerings by also incorporating Ulta Beauty shops this year into 100 locations this year.)
Fluid shopping
What these relationships mean for consumers is that brands and retailers are becoming more attuned to the future of shopping. Customers are fluid in how they want to shop: One day they may opt for a personal, immersive experience at Sephora and the next they’ll order lipstick online. Convenience is a driving force, but it doesn’t always mean ecommerce. Sometimes, convenience is the ease of being able to go to a physical location and try on, inspect, and ask questions.
Successful retail has always meant providing what customers want, when they want it. Today’s technology merely widens the possibilities, and requires retailers to be intuitive and flexible.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in the United States, more than one in four adults are living with “some type of disability.” That is a huge opportunity for today’s retailers to meet the needs of a significant market segment.
Retail responds for accessibility needs
For some time, retailers have adapted their online presence as well as their physical stores to meet the needs of people with physical challenges.
Online websites, for example, must ensure the proper use of HTML, so assistive technology can accurately interpret the page content. In addition, the tab key should be able to navigate through all an ecommerce site’s web pages and access all interactive features.
But while retailers are making their websites more accessible, the items they sell do not always meet everyone’s needs. Gradually, clothing retailers have started to recognize the segment of people with disabilities by offering adaptive clothing, i.e., apparel that helps people with disabilities to get dressed or to simply live life. The segment includes people with specific physical impairments, the elderly and people who have recently had surgery.
Tommy Hilfiger drew on its athletic wear experience, which focuses on movement, performance and functionality, to create its Tommy Adaptive collection.
Hallmarks of these pieces include easy closures, ease of movement, seated wear, easy open necklines, magnetic buttons, hook and loop closures, internal pull-up hoops, low front and high back, part openings, and side seam openings. The designer was inspired to create a line of adaptive clothing when he saw the dressing challenges faced by his autistic daughter and son.
Hilfiger is not alone. Ugg’s iconic shearling lined boots are now available with side zippers for easy access and pull tabs on the back to help secure the shoe. Aerie has partnered with Abilitee Adaptive Wear to offer adaptive accessories, such as fabric belts to hold insulin pumps and water-resistant ostomy bag covers.
But the big brand names are also facing competition from startups who saw an opportunity to serve people’s needs and jumped on it.
For example, Careandwear realized cancer patients have unique clothing needs during treatment. In response, it developed and sells a Chest Port Hoodie, which provides wearer easy access to a chemo port. And Alter Ur Ego makes comfortable and adaptive jeans that feature accessible pockets, elastic waistbands, and straps for easy dressing.
Today, brands are reaching out to the disabled community, confronting social-emotional, environmental, and physical barriers and exceeding those customers’ expectations.
Slowly but surely, retailers are providing products for the one-quarter of the population that identifies as having a disability.
It’s a retail conundrum: Foot traffic in malls is decreasing, and brick and mortar stores are losing ground to ecommerce – yet shoppers still want to visit stores to touch and try out products before buying.
To capture more sales and remain relevant to shoppers, big box stores are thinking out of the box and partnering with popular name-brand product manufacturers.
Bringing Apple to you at Target
Image from Target
Target recently announced it will double the size of Apple’s footprint in 17 locations, expanding offerings in stores and online. In addition, Target team members will receive specialized training from Apple.
The retail behemoth has also partnered with Ulta Beauty to open 1,000-square-foot beauty shops, which will be staffed with Target employees who have been trained by the beauty retailer.
Notably, Ulta also provides customers with many services such as in-store hair salons, which drive considerable foot traffic: Salon customers reportedly make twice as many trips to an Ulta Beauty store as those who do not use those services.
And Target isn’t the only big box store looking to pretty itself up: Kohl’s will open 200 “Sephora at Kohl’s” locations this fall, with at least 850 locations planned by 2023. The cosmetics retailer will launch on Kohl’s website in 2022, offering more than 100 beauty brands, some of which are exclusive to Sephora.
Products across price points
The beauty segment is notable because America’s department store makeup counters have historically been the place to purchase upper-end cosmetics.
The American beauty counter is iconic.
However, they’ve gradually been losing popularity as shoppers prefer to visit specialized retailers – such as Ulta and Sephora – which can provide a more extensive variety of products at different price points.
However, by collaborating with those same cosmetics retailers as well as be increasing their in-store footprint, department stores could win back many of those customers.
Department stores are using the popularity of brands such as Apple, Sephora and Ulta to lure customers back into their stores.
Once inside, the customers can be tempted to continue shopping for other products.
In a way, department stores function like mini-malls: From motor oil to bikinis to wrapping paper, these stores have it all.
The tough part today is getting the shoppers to come into the store.
The addition of top brand names will help provide the visibility needed to get shoppers in the automatic door.
