Inc Retail Uncovers How Retailers Can Use Physical Stores in a Digital Era

Like the saying “If you can’t beat them, join them” would suggest, if there’s a reason that people like online shopping, we should do what we can to bring those into a physical space.

A great example I’ve seen of this comes from retail giant, Amazon in their newly launched Bluewater store.

In this store they only sell products that are rated four-stars and above, which takes the guess-work out of in-store shopping. It’s like going through the ‘trending’ page of a website where you know you’re only getting the best of the best.

Alongside this, the store also has digital prices, average star rating and number of customer reviews on every product—which is not the standard for other retail outlets.

Finally, shoppers in the Amazon store can get all of the Prime deals and perks they’re used to online, which removes one of the incentives people have to ditch in-store shopping.

Use innovative platforms to boost loyalty and engagement

Customer loyalty is something that all retailers want to achieve, and I’ve seen some really interesting ways that companies are going about achieving this.

For example, a UK start up called Jisp that’s ‘leading contact-free retail and grocery’ through the use of scan & save apps.

They recently worked with Nisa and since launching the Scan & Save trial, they had reached 10,000 scans, 5,000 taps and 2,000 redemptions in only five short weeks—pretty impressive.

The brand has also started working with the likes of Kellogg’s, Red Bull and Nomad Foods to offer similar schemes which provide savings on certain products using an innovative new method of handing out augmented reality vouchers.

Find ways to make your customer’s lives easier

It feels like everyone is busier than ever, so making sure that your retail store is a seamless and speedy experience for your customers can often be extremely important.

Supermarkets especially can often be a lengthy process, which has led many people to start shopping for their groceries online, which isn’t always the best as you can’t pick out your produce yourself, and are often faced with substitutions that you didn’t want.

To improve their physical stores, Tesco launched its first checkout-free store, which is similar to the ‘Just Walk Out’ approach, championed by Amazon.

Shoppers can walk into the store, check-in using a QR code, pick up their items, walk out and wait for the charge to come through on their phone.

I think that this is probably the direction that most stores will be following in the coming years, and it makes sense. Why should customers have to load and unload their trolleys and baskets multiple times while in the store—it doesn’t make sense, so I’m very intrigued by all of these companies finding alternative ways to smooth out this process.

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