Create better in-store experiences for your customers

We live in an age of retailing that’s primarily been defined by the rise of online shopping. Not having to move an inch to buy a product and see it delivered straight to your door, has given consumers an unparalleled amount of ease. From baby boomers to millennials, the commonality of eCommerce is widespread, and only rising.

However, this is not to say that the brick and mortar retail industry is dead, as the demand for an in-store experience is still appreciable. Rather, it has forced retail outlets to be fiercely competitive – finding new and innovative ways to keep customers engaged, and out of their front doors.

Fortunately, there are ways to achieve this and below are several tips to help you started.

Provide a personable service

There are certain expectations a customer has if they desire to shop in a physical retail store rather than on an online website. One of the most critical tenants of that choice is the personal, one-to-one, level of attention and service, they expect to receive.

Where an online store can view shoppers as clicks, in-store customers are identifiable humans – where connections do matter. The 2016 Microsoft State of Global Customer Service report, identified customer service as being a key factor in how people view brands and their loyalty to them. 97% of consumers around the world, were reported to have been impacted by good customer service.

Taking steps to ensure that the service your offering customers is on point can include:

• Offering the most complete knowledge of your products – giving consumers complete optionality and not pushing one thing too hard.
• Making sure your employees are always available and attentive to the customer’s needs.
• Offering customer loyalty points/discounts to retain customers and gain new ones.

Streamline the checkout with an iPad

The convenience of online shopping, highlights one of the major drawback of the in-store experience.

Long lines at the checkout: Waiting in line is really a culmination of the many things that can be painstakingly annoying, when buying in-store. From driving to the store to spending hours finding and deliberating what you want, it’s easy to see why shoppers are switching to eCommerce.

Yet whilst brick and mortar stores can seem like something out of yesteryear, they can decidedly run in a contemporary way.

Take service to the customers directly by utilising an iPad POS as your retail solution.

Not only does an iPad deliver an intuitive touch-screen experience and faster service, but you can also bypass waiting times by making sales on the spot, wherever your customers are in the store. Have engaging interactions with your customers by using your iPad on-the-road too, as you sell at tradeshows or pop-up shops.

Modern retailing deserves modern technology, and the iPad is the perfect blend of smart and savvy that your customers will love and your staff will appreciate.

Hike Tip: With an integrated iPad POS app, Hike makes it easy for you to start retailing on your iPad. Get rid of clunky old cash registers and say hello to Hike’s iPad cash register app, that makes adding new outlets and cash registers a breeze!

In-store aesthetics

Speaking of a streamlined checkout, the entirety of your store can benefit from a trendy aesthetic that captures the essence of your store.

Think of it in terms of more than just buying and selling. A Sunday afternoon outing between friends might just find its way to your store, not because it was planned, but because what they saw inside grabbed their attention. In the simplest terms, design a store that you would want to shop in – differentiating yourself from the norm in as many ways as you can.

Consider a more tactile approach when doing this, whether it being having your products readily available to touch and feel or by playing music softly in the background. Knowing your customers, also goes a long way in this too where an urban clothing store for a younger demographic might warrant a more recent selection of pop/indie music, to be played. Even things like scents can play to a certain atmosphere and mood that helps keep customers interested and coming back. It’s a matter of finding out what works for you.

Link your physical and online stores

Whilst we hang onto the nostalgia of brick and mortar stores, the need to expand business by providing an online platform is still necessary. Such has become the way consumers shop – various sales channels, at any hour of the day – that the need to have a presence in the online space is simply good retailing.

Yet having an online website doesn’t have to detract from your in-store sales. In fact, it can enhance it. We see this through the implementation of Click & Collect. A popular service whereby customers order online and pick-up in-store. Not only does this give customers greater flexibility and convenience, but it also – by its very definition – drives people to your store. Creating a better in-store environment, is a perfect opportunity for customers who are at your store to pick-up a purchased item, to buy even more items.

Linking your online store with your brick and mortar store is also important because it gives you a centrally located retail solution, that provides complete syncing between all your sales, inventory, customers and orders, under the one system. Don’t have separate solutions for your eCommerce, and in-store point-of-sale. Combine the two with an all-in-one software program, that’s designed to help both your in-store and online sales.

Retailtainment

An interesting and rather new concept to the retail store is retailtainment. It was first introduced by American sociologist George Ritzer who wrote in 1999 that retailtainment was the ‘use of sound, ambience, emotion and activity to get customers interested in the merchandise and in the mood to buy’.

This is to say that retailtainment is asking retailers to seek avenues that would make the shopping experience more enjoyable and unique from everything else. There are limits to this of course, and a lot of it depends on how practical it is for your store to pursue any options, but it should at least be considered.

Whether it’s bringing people of note to do guest signings or a performance by a local band, attracting customers by providing different experiences, that you won’t get from any other store, might be just the trick to get customers in.

Indeed, as we enter a market that becomes saturated with online stores, proving to be a real point of difference – offering great customer service and genuine experiences – is crucial getting customers walk through your door.

As a business, it’s to consider all your options and engage with the ones that work best with your store. The choices are many, but it’s important to find out more about your customers and be prepared to try new things – in pursuit of something that really works.