It’s the time of year when the world’s thoughts turn to love. For retailers, Valentine’s Day offers a shopping boost in the after-holiday mid-February slump, but it’s more than that – it’s also a reminder that love comes in many forms, including the love that shoppers have for their favourite store. Getting shoppers to love your store is a sure-fire way to retail success – customer satisfaction, competitive advantage, scalability and business growth.
Having customers who love your store is different to having them love your products. Of course you want them to love your products too, but store love is a different, more enduring passion than product love. There are a couple of reasons for this:
- Depending on the type of retail operation, your products may not be unique to your store. If you sell brands that are not yours, your customers could maintain their love for the product, but buy it elsewhere.
- Products have a finite life – if your customer loves just your product, what happens when their favourite product reaches the end of its life?
Store love, on the other hand, is a deeper, longer lasting love, and one that transcends products. It’s a love that is loyal, and it’s a love that wants to tell the world how great you are.
Just like human love, store love is generated by how you make the shopper feel *. It’s driven by how you communicate with them before they buy, the in-store experience, and what they feel after the transaction.
Retailers can nurture this store love through personalization and in-store service.
Personalization
Shoppers want to feel unique, valued and understood **. That means that when it comes to communication, mass messages and promotions designed for ‘anyone and everyone’ don’t cut through. Whereas personalized marketing and targeted promotions, based on data about their preferences and past purchases, create a strong bond and emotional connection that is hard for your competition to break.
In-store service
When shoppers are in your store, it’s essential to provide the customer experience that they want. For some, that will be fast and efficient shopping – the ability to find what they want easily on the shelves and fast and frictionless checkout with a range of payment options ***. Many want the store to be part of a transaction that starts online, and moves to bricks and mortar, such as click and collect. Shoppers definitely don’t want to arrive in a store and find that the item they want is out of stock **** – that’s one of the surest ways to dent their love. For others, it’s about having store staff provide information and suggestions to help them make their choice, or about attending events in the store and seeing it as a leisure destination. The key is to understand your customers and provide the in-store service that they demand.
The role of technology
Retail technology can ‘play Cupid’ and help retailers to get shoppers to love them, especially as their business scales. The best point-of-sale (POS) system can provide the personalized experiences and store service that generate store love, and free up staff to add the all-important human touch.
The key elements of a retail POS system that drive store love include:
A personalization engine and loyalty programs – helping retailers to analyze data about customers and use it to make shoppers feel known and valued, for example by creating:
- Promotions and offers based on what the customer has bought or browsed in the past.
- Birthday offers and discount vouchers to make them feel special.
- Welcome texts when they are in/near the store.
- Exclusive events and offers for loyalty program members.
- The same treatment no matter where they shop – in store or online.
Fast efficient point of sale – to ensure that customers don’t fall out of love with you whilst they’re queuing up to check out and pay.
Mobile POS – giving store associates the ability to provide personalized service in store, make suggestions based on past purchases and offer a speedy, no-queue checkout.
Omnichannel technology – giving customers the option to shop the way they want to – whether that’s online, in store or omnichannel retail transactions that combine both, such as click and collect, buy online return in-store (BORIS) or other multi-channel transactions.
Data analytics – to enable retailers to understand customers better and make the data-driven decisions that underpin personalized experiences.
Inventory management to keep track of stock, know when key items are low and re-order in time to avoid stock-outs.
Retailers who invest in customer relationships and focus on building store love see a strong ROI with high levels of customer engagement, giving them a competitive advantage and fueling growth.
FAQs
How does inventory management affect store love?
Research tells us that if a shopper can’t find the item they want in the store, the majority go elsewhere, or postpone their purchase. That leads not only to lost sales and revenue for the store, but to frustration on the part of the shopper. Their love diminishes a little, and after too many similar experiences may die altogether. Robust and efficient inventory management helps the retailer to know when stock levels are getting low, and to automate re-ordering, so that the items are always in stock, ready to generate customer store love.
How can mobile POS help to ensure that customers love your store?
If you have customers who want advice, product information and guidance on making their choice, then equipping staff with mobile POS is a big step towards getting those customers to fall in love with you. The store associate can engage with the customer face to face, equipped with all the information they need about the customer’s past purchases, and about the store’s products and their availability. Staff can help customers by placing orders, checking the status of orders, making purchase suggestions and offering the customer in-aisle checkout without having to queue at a lane. All of which encourages love to flourish and grow stronger.
We, at the Board Retailers Association, are here to help you to succeed by providing resources and programs that enable you to lower day to day costs, increase margins and create more remarkable customer experiences. We provide a voice for our Retail Members and will never share your information. BRA has been “protecting retailers and a lifestyle” for 20 years (since 2003). If you are not yet a BRA Retail Member, you can easily opt in to either Regular (no cost) or Distinguished ($100/yr.) Membership via this super simple join form