The merger of online and offline channels in retail (by Romina Giovannoli)
The arrival of the smartphone, which has allowed each of us to always be connected and reachable, has connected brands and people in a constant flow of two-way communication. Thus, thanks to this mobile device, businesses and merchants have been enabled to reach customers and prospects in precise moments and with more individual than collective criteria, but above all potentially more in line with expectations; and consumers have had the opportunity to explore in depth all the information on the products and services they want to buy.
So with the digital and physical smartphone they have merged, giving life to a hybrid reality in which these two worlds integrate perfectly to the point of pushing retailers to create experiences that take place smoothly online and offline and in the intermediate steps because "the new shoppers they want unique and tangible experiences, they want to feel connected and never harnessed within any boundary "(Kotler, 2018, p.55). Let's see now how they integrate online and offline in retail.
In brick-and-mortar stores, customers find themselves perusing a vast assortment on the shelves to choose the brand they want to buy. A solution to facilitate the choice can be the use of sensor-based technologies (beacon, NFC connectivity, radio frequency identification [RFID]) that allow webrooming to be brought to stores. Retailers can place beacons in strategic locations in retail outlets. The beacons communicate with customers' smartphones using Bluetooth technology, creating a machine-to-machine connection when they are nearby. With these devices, retailers can follow the movements of customers within the store, monitoring which departments they visit most often and how long they spend to make the display of goods more efficient and to optimize visual merchandising.
At the same time, thanks to beacons, retailers can be warned of the right time to send personalized offers on customers' smartphones in relation to where they are. Once they have accumulated a certain amount of customer behavioral data (such as based on previous purchases) they can further customize their offers to increase the likelihood of a purchase.
Although customers are very interested in personalized offers, they sometimes feel the need to evaluate them by searching for more information online, and only if the information confirms their interest are they willing to buy the offers. So with sensor-based technologies, stores can make this process more fluid. For example, Burberry uses sensors in its stores: the garments are equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which activate the mirrors in the dressing rooms when customers try them on. On the mirror, customers can watch a video describing the product. Casino, a French supermarket, places near field communication (NFC) tags on its products. When customers frame the label with their smartphone, they can have immediate access to product details. But not only that, Casino accompanies the consumer until the moment of purchase: customers can scan the labels with their smartphones to add products to the virtual cart and to pay at the cashier.
While online channels allow customers to purchase products and services quickly and easily and access a vast pool of trusted content to simplify decision making, they can never completely replace offline channels. Offline shopping gives you a shopping experience that involves all five senses. At the same time, physical store shopping is linked to lifestyle and status issues; people want to see and expect to be seen by others while shopping offline. Also keep in mind that offline channels are characterized by human-to-human connections. These features of offline shopping can be brought to online channels by adopting showrooming techniques. A great example is offered by IKEA. IKEA knows that it is difficult for customers to find furniture of the right size for their spaces; so with his augmented reality app and print catalog, he helped customers solve this problem. By placing a printed catalog in the place of the house where they want to put the furniture, and framing it with the smartphone, customers can see the final effect.
The showrooming technique allows customers to purchase and examine products in physical spaces using the five senses, and to establish interpersonal relationships while shopping. It also brings the best of offline experiences back to digital channels, while solving the problems of online shopping.
The integration between online and offline channels is nothing more than the keystone for the future of retail. Merchants will have to go to great lengths to break down the barriers between these two traditional worlds deemed separate.
Romina Giovannoli
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The article The merger of online and offline channels in retail (by Romina Giovannoli) comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/la-fusione-dei-canali-online-e-offline-nel-retail-di-romina-giovannoli/ on Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:00:09 +0000.