10 ways mobility is changing how modern retailers sell

Retail is changing thanks to technology

When was the last time that you used your mobile device to shop competitors while in a store, search for coupons, or do on-the-spot research? If you’re alive and over 18, it’s probably been recently.

By Swaroop Rao, VP and Global Head, Mobility Practice at Happiest Minds Technologies points out that three in every four people in the world have access to a mobile device, which has changed how retailers connect with customers.

“Retailers can now connect with current and potential customers — and vice versa — regardless of location or time of day,” Rao notes. “With this increased connectivity comes significant opportunities for retailers to get uniquely attuned to the individuality and personalities of their customers, which in turn allows them to nimbly adapt retail business practices — including distribution, operations, merchandising, marketing, and customer service — for maximum revenue impact.”

So how exactly can retailers use mobility to their advantage? In his own words, Rao offers the following 10 ways:

1. Embrace Me-Commerce

Technology has allowed unlimited choices in lifestyles, work styles, and the ways consumers choose to shop. Along with this comes the expectation on the part of the consumer that their retail experience be highly personalized to their tastes. The evolution of this Me-Commerce concept will only continue, and retailers wishing to maximize their impact with current and future generations of shoppers must use mobility as a primary tool to do so.

2. Include mobile in an Omni-Channel approach

Retailers must ensure that customers have the same brand experience at all points of contact, across all channels and devices. Whether they are window-shopping, purchasing, or paying, an Omni-Channel approach to multi-channel retailing can be maximized as more and more consumers choose to perform some or all of these activities via their mobile devices.

3. Maximize mobility both externally and internally

Mobility means far more to savvy retailers than simply an app that facilitates consumer shopping. Studies have shown that companies are unable to prevent employees from bringing their own devices to work. Smart retailers can take advantage of that situation and maximize productivity in their employees by allowing them to use those devices for inventory check-points, sales assistance, pre-sales, and more.

4. Strategize for “showrooming”

 
Increasingly, consumers are using brick-and-mortar stores to examine merchandise, then buy those same products online with their mobile devices. Smart retailers will develop a strategy for showrooming which allows in-store employees to be empowered through mobile to provide enough product data and personalized assistance to close the sale.

5. Maximize hyper-targeting

Customers are constantly on the go, and hyper-targeting allows retailers to go right with them, with the right message, at the right time, and the right place. Smart retailers will maximize mobile to promote personalization and individualization as customers move about in-store, using tools like Wi-Fi, LTE, iBeacon, and even augmented reality (AR) techniques.

6. Apply smart science with Big Data

In today’s age of Big Data, the proliferation of technologies has exponentially grown the amount of data that’s created and consumed. Retailers can optimize the volume of data at their disposal by applying Big Data science to the art of retail. Never before could retailers so acutely understand, comprehend and target their customers to create a highly individualized shopping experience.

7. Reinvent Loyalty Programs

Mobility allows for a highly personal experience with retail customers, and today’s retailers can take advantage through Loyalty programs that uniquely resonate with customer habits and preferences. No longer just a “tick mark activity” for retailers, reinvented Loyalty Programs have the potential — through mobile applications — to be one of the best ways to stay connected to customers in the long run.

8. Allow social media to drive inventory

Social media allows retailers to have an informative dialog with customers, more than ever before. Feedback through tools like Pinterest, Instagram, Quora, Craig’s List, etc. is invaluable in starting to drive inventory per customer preferences and trends.

9. Digitize stores for mobile use:

Connect with your customers in-store with digital displays, ePubs, multi-media presentations, etc. Then, connect the in-store digital experience with your customers’ mobile device to close the sale. Promotions, products, incentives and information presented through the interplay of in-store digital and hand-held mobile can create a customer “wow” moment that your lagging competitors can’t match.

10. Utilize APIs for enhanced customer services

Retailers today can employ the use of APIs and service providers to offer customers enhancements in the brand experience and its services like never before. Possibilities can include things like catalog as a service, wish list as a service, registry as a service, real-time pricing, stock notifications, etc. The list is limited only by the retailers’ imagination in how they interact in a highly personalized way with their customers.