The retail space has witnessed significant innovation over the past few years. From interactive displays and cashless payments to beacons sending in-store offers–and much more–retail is undergoing a major overhaul and a welcome change from age-old strategies.

With the emergence of new technologies, such as iBeacon, visual search, wearable technology, and augmented reality, digital and physical retail channels are quickly converging to provide highly engaging and contextually rich shopping experiences. We recently published a blog on ‘Retail Marketing Strategies for 2016‘ on CMO. It talks about what retailers can do to march ahead of the competition. Here are a few:

1. Focus On Speed And Convenience

Customers today are looking for a combination of both convenience and speed in their shopping experience. The click-and-collect feature is a great way to address this growing customer need. It gives the flexibility to simply place an order from wherever the customer is and collect it as early as they like from the store.

Here is a graph presented by Carrefour Italy at the eDelivery Expo 2015, that depicts how the ROI on click-and-collect is higher than pure e-commerce:

2. Engage Customers With Contextual, Personalized Messages

One of the keys to retail success today is to connect with customers at their moment of truth – defined as the time a decision has to be made. For customers, it is these moments of truth that define a brand and can go a long way in determining customer loyalty. Connecting to shoppers with highly tailored and personalized experiences entices them like nothing else can.

A few key ways in which retailers can send personalized messages in 2016 are:

– Time-relevant messages, such as notifications on a limited period offer on the customer’s favourite brand.

– Preference-based notifications asking if a customer wishes to try on the dress she recently browsed online.

– Circumstantial notification on the shortest path in-store to find the items on her wishlist.

 3. Innovate With Interactive In-Store Retail Technology

Facilitate the endless aisle experience

A large number of customers today prefer browsing through a store’s inventory online before actually visiting the store. Endless aisle solutions make larger segments of a retailer’s total inventory visible and available to every shopper in every store.

Marks and Spencer, for example, introduced a “virtual rail” consisting of 46-inch touchscreens, each showcasing 50 clothing samples, in one of their stores. Customers can browse all options, check prices and availability, watch a video of a model wearing the clothes, and even place an order right in the store.

Some of the other powerful strategies that retailers should invest in include personalised loyalty programs and cashless checkouts among others. Check out our post – Tech-Led Innovation: Retail Marketing Strategies For 2016, for complete insights on the next wave of retail innovations.

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