The face of Australian retail is changing with enormous rapidity. It’s reshaping the way brands engage with customers at every point of the buying process and beyond to boost customer satisfaction and increase loyalty.
Today’s shoppers are hyper-connected and expect to be able to ‘mix and match’ channels with ease, moving fluidly across digital touchpoints, social networks, e-commerce store fronts, devices and store locations in a consistent and connected way.
Smart phones, smart tags and sensors are changing consumer expectations and introducing new ways to connect. All of which makes multi-channel an undeniable reality that Australian brands need to master fast!
Introducing ‘MyCommerce’
Shopping in person is a physical experience that’s difficult to replicate online. Consumers get to touch the merchandise and see it up close. In the digital world, retailers have to build a complete view of their shopper to create personalised experiences. This needs to extend to their activities in-store, using customer intelligence and insights to engage with shoppers in ‘real time’ and incentivise and reward shoppers for their brand loyalty.
But for incentives to work properly they have to be relevant to the individual at a particular moment. When a shopper visits the store and uses a mobile ‘check in’ app, they could receive a simple question to identify the purpose of the shopping trip, helping the retailer to deliver the right content and incentives at the right time.
Using their mobile phone, shoppers can instantly find what’s in stock and available in their size and colour preference, with the additional opportunity of being able to order and reserve from an ‘endless aisle’ of inventory for delivery or collection in-store next time they visit.
Integrating social
But shoppers aren’t stopping there. They want to post a photo of an item and add it to their ‘wish list’ to share with friends and family, or request feedback on items via social media.
Australian women’s fitness and leisurewear brand Lorna Jane has embarked on a localised strategy, by maintaining Facebook pages for each of its 120 retail stores. The intent is to build a community around each local store in order to offer customers as close to what they want as possible.
Sharing the brand’s experience with social media has meant that its online sales are now equivalent to the sales of seven of its bricks and mortar stores, with 10 per cent of conversions coming from Facebook. Lorna Jane has experienced a 300 per cent increase in web traffic and 400 per cent lift in online sales over the past 18 months, and also launched a new website this year.
This website will enable it to support this growing demand more effectively going forward, and is also set to fuel the brand's expansion into the US with a localised website and distribution centre in the coming months.
A surge of innovation
When it comes to getting closer to customers, and using multi-channel knowledge of a shopper’s habits, retailers can start to deliver on the promise of becoming a ‘trusted advisor’. On their way to the store, consumers can use their phone to access their very own ‘personal shopper’ or ‘style guru’ app.
Retailers can also put a new twist on the ‘order and collect’ initiative by offering ‘reserve and try’ apps that let shoppers research and prepare to maximise the convenience of their in-store visit. Within minutes they can request items in their size and colour preferences – or try a total look – and have items ready and waiting for them to try on their arrival in-store.
Doing things differently
Today’s multi-channel retailing technologies have created a powerful tool for better, closer and deeper consumer engagement and expanded the choices for communicating with shoppers at the right time and right place.
By doing new things in new ways, fashion retailers can reinvent their stores in the total customer experience, creating more immediacy and greater brand trust. All of which allows today’s fashion and apparel retailers to take their look to the next level.