CRIMSON BLOG
As customers have more opportunities and choice in buying, it seems like the traditional brick and mortar store is always under pressure. The big box stores are serving up heavy price and assortment competition. Centralized shopping areas have moved away from the main street. Customers are transitioning to online shopping and have relegated brick and mortar stores to showrooms that serve to validate a future online purchase.
Online retailers are moving beyond the click and collect service to setting up anything that will make it easier for customers to get their products such as delivery services, self-serve collection locations and curbside pickups.
Despite, or due to, these pressures, retailers are still seeking to improve the brick and mortar store experience for their customers, regardless of location or other factors. While the melding of essential store concepts with online purchasing functionality has become the norm, stores must innovate to keep their customers and grow.
Recognizing the Online Onslaught
Online buying’s appeal has to do with what we could call the Birthday factor – “Ooh! Something to open!” with the contents sometimes being a bit of a surprise if no prior research was done in advance. Despite the ease of online ordering followed by the fun of receiving packages and opening them, it’s been found that roughly 83% of shoppers (1) prefer to return their online purchases to a physical store (called BORIS for buy online, return in store). Then, when they’re in the store, they may purchase additional items.
This merging of the online and the physical store also occurs when the customer decides to buy online and pickup in store (which is called BOPIS for short or click and collect). In this case, customers avoid shipping fees and can complete easy returns if necessary. Retailers must be ready to offer this service in an efficient way that may avoid the in-store queue for the service desk. Most importantly, inventory must be suitably accounted for since the store has now become the fulfillment centre.
Re vitalizing Brick and Mortar
To emphasize some great points about shopping in-store, Winners stores, a Canadian banner of the retailer TJX, ran an ad (2) in late 2018 that referred to “Offline” shopping where customers are present in the store and humourously advocated the speed of human search engines, multi-sensory feedback, instant add-to-cart technology and no shipping fees. While Winners does not offer online shopping, Bed Bath and Beyond does and in spring of 2019, they jumped on the same idea(3) by promoting touching items prior to purchasing them and the concept of immediate “shipping” using the tag line “Think Outside the Screen”.
Facing the Customer
Ultimately, the retailer has new opportunities of meeting the customer face-to-face. Getting those customers to have a superior in-store experience is an essential part of building loyalty.
While there are a number of tactics being used to attract and retain customers including mirrors (4) that can show a customer 360 degrees in their outfit, accepting cryptocurrency and using augmented reality (AR) to demo products to consumers (5), these innovative technologies must be complemented by the store having, or being able to locate, the products customers want and for the customer to pay for them in a timely manner using a variety of payment methods.
References :
(1) Leberman, Dan, “Buy Online Return In Store (BORIS) and Buy Online Pickup In Store (BOPIS): The Two Acronyms All Small Businesses Should Know.” Inc. Accessed July 2019. https://www.inc.com/dan-leberman/buy-online-return-in-store-boris-and-buy-online-pickup-in-store-bopis-the-two-ac.html
(2) Winners video, YouTube. Accessed July 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUs9h1-f7PU
(3)Bed Bath Beyond video, YouTube. Accessed July 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c_Br-mO7Po
(4) DeNisco-Rayonne, Alison, “How Neiman Marcus’ top-down innovation strategy transformed retail and increased revenue.” ZDNet. Accessed July 2019. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/augmented-reality-retail
(5) Forsey, Caroline, “Five Ways Augmented (AR) Reality is Transforming Retail.” Hubspot. Accessed July 2019. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/augmented-reality-retail
(c) Crimson Transaction Technologies 2023