Why Mobile May Be the Best Technology for Your Retail Stores

When making a grocery shopping list online, do you ever get frustrated with your grocer’s online sales flyer — the one that’s simply a digital image of the printed version that arrives in your mail each week? Then, even when your online list is complete, depending on which app you use, it can be hard to share it with another family member who has offered to do the shopping. And once you are in the store, there is no way to organize your list in order of where items are stocked — unless you have the store layout memorized.

Grocery shopping is a retail experience ready for improvement. Customers often visit the physical space, but frequently do their planning ahead of time on digital devices — whether reviewing recipes for meal planning, finding sale items, gathering coupons, or making shopping lists. In an attempt to show how current technology can help bridge the divide between online and offline retail experiences, Adobe partnered with global digital agency Valtech to create a proof-of-concept demo.

For the shopper, mobile is a massive part of their retail experience. People check their mobile devices an average of 85 times a day, but desktops still boast 75 percent of online revenue. And while retailers still struggle to convert mobile views or interactions into sales, physical retail locations are struggling to maintain foot traffic — due to the success of online shopping. Given this scenario, mobile interaction becomes a critical component for boosting loyalty and enhancing the overall customer experience, allowing shoppers to move seamlessly from digital to physical and vice versa.

Mobile Devices Help Deliver the Complete Experience
The grocery example looks at many small ways to change the relationship between a customer and a grocer so that loyalty can be built. The loyalty comes from the value a customer receives when grocers — or any brand — help them make the best decisions through a variety of interactions throughout their entire shopping journey.

“If marketers don’t offer a fluid shopping experience across digital and physical worlds, their customers will go to competitors that do,” says Michael Klein, director of Industry Strategy for Retail at Adobe.

Consider these additional mobile experiences that are helping retailers provide fluidity and value as customers move between online to offline spaces.

Help locate items. Finding specific items in a grocery store can be a drawn-out process for the novice and veteran shopper alike. Similarly, finding just the right pipe fitting in a big-box store like The Home Depot can be a frustrating experience. Basic digital features can help direct in-store shoppers to the item they are in search of, and also suggest additional related items they may need, whether for a recipe or a weekend DIY project.

With The Home Depot’s mobile app, shoppers will notice a subtle and automatic switch once they enter a store. The “in-store” mode helps customers quickly identify the item they need and then provide its exact aisle and bay among the other 35,000 items. No two stores have the exact same layout, so the mobile app uses location services to tell which store a customer is in and then access that store’s layout.

Provide consulting. Another way The Home Depot is using mobile technology is by providing input on purchase decisions. According to The Home Depot, about three-fourths of customers decide to forgo a paint project — and purchase — because they can’t decide on a color. By leveraging mobile devices and their cameras, the retailer created an app that lets people take a picture of their hopeful paint project and then change the colors to see how different paints will look on the space. This app uses mobile technology to connect a customer’s home with the paint selections found in store and takes some of the guesswork and anxiety out of a basic decision with a major obstacle.

Ease checkout. While most retailers have adopted mobile payment systems, others are pushing the boundaries by eliminating the checkout process altogether. Amazon, which has a handful of brick-and-mortar stores despite trends of decreasing foot traffic, is testing its system at the Amazon Go grocery store in Seattle. Shoppers — currently limited to Amazon employees — scan their phone on the way into the store, shop, and then walk right out without stopping to pay at a cashier or kiosk. The shopper’s Amazon account is simply charged for items taken, which are identified through a combination of AI, computer vision, and data pulled from multiple sensors.

Another retailer, Walmart, is rolling out its Scan & Go app that allows you to scan items with your smartphone as you put them in your cart, total the purchase on your phone, and generate a receipt. Ultimately, shoppers can bypass the checkout line and exit the store hassle free.

Says Michael, “When the items to be purchased are charged to an app on the shopper’s phone — through a variety of technologies — this is a great example of bridging the mobile, the digital, the online, and the offline into a seamless customer experience.”

Retailers Get Big Benefits Too
The retail examples above are designed to provide a fluid and exceptional experience to retail customers. But retailers should also be careful not to miss out on the benefits for themselves. Here are a few ways to do that.

Attract customers to the store. Joshua Young, vice president of global partner alliance and strategies for Valtech, explains that their ideas for the grocery app aren’t designed to keep people from the store, but rather to drive them there, while at the same time easing their experience as they walk through the aisles. “We want to leverage mobile technology that shoppers are already using, to help them easily find all the products in the store that they want to receive,” Joshua says.

Other retailers are focusing on connecting the benefits of merging online and offline experiences too. Nordstrom, for example, has a variety of online and offline brands, including HauteLook and Trunk Club, which allow the cross branding of services. For example, if a customer buys online with HauteLook, they can take that item and return it to a Nordstrom or Nordstrom Rack store. Michael explains the benefits. “This is an online to offline experience that is positive because it allows shoppers to have instant gratification in terms of getting a return back to the retailer and then getting the credit. When I made a return in this way, I actually purchased additional items while I was in the physical store. It was a win-win for both the brand and me.”

Another way Nordstrom is connecting digital and physical experiences is with value-add services. Michael shares that Trunk Club directs customers to take their selected purchases to a Nordstrom store for any desired alterations. The cost for alterations is based on Nordstrom’s rewards program — and it’s complimentary for the most loyal customers.

Sell more items. Getting customers to a store is a great opportunity for another sale. However, Valtech’s grocery app also gives retailers the chance to increase total purchases by upselling in a way that’s relevant and personalized given the context of their experience at any given time.

“We want to improve the opportunity for grocers to suggest additional products in a very logical way, based on things that we know about the shopper,” says Joshua. “By using the context of their experience — past purchase history, dietary preferences, planned meals, health concerns, and even where they are in the store — we can personalize product suggestions in a helpful, non-intrusive way.”

Capture data from physical — not just digital — experiences. It can be hard to capture data from shoppers during in-store interactions, but with mobile you have a way to give both them and you better information. Grocery loyalty programs already store a wealth of data that is necessary for historic information that will give context for relevant and personalized experiences, as mentioned above. But mobile interactions can continue to feed those databases with new and expanded information for a richer customer profile that will only lead to a better understanding of what customers want.

Another mobile technology with the ability to capture data is bluetooth low energy (BLE). It was quite the rage a few years ago, but never really took off as a tool for push marketing. “Apparently, shoppers weren’t interested in getting pinged endlessly as they walked through stores,” says Michael. “However, we are seeing the value of BLE in collecting data and other more operational items like understanding traffic patterns and dwell time in certain locations.”

The Win-Win of a Holistic Retail Experience
In an industry that has long been fractured by competition between the online and offline, mobile devices are proving to be the technology that can connect the two for holistic, fluid experiences for the shopper, and valuable feedback and contextual marketing opportunities for the retailer.

For more insights on how retailers are adopting new technologies for more personal customer experiences, read more from our digital marketing retail series.

The post Why Mobile May Be the Best Technology for Your Retail Stores appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Adobe.

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