- Contest Factory
- April 28, 2022
Retail Marketing Technology Advances
Retail Marketing has seen oodles of technology advances that while these solutions existed, the demand and landscape was not making it standard in retail stores, nor did retailers understand how much this would impact their bottom line with net new sales and happier customers. Let us share with you a few case studies that will ignite your retail creativity to solve your own retail challenges or more so, provide opportunity for additional sales.
Smart Shopping Cart
The Amazon Dash cart enables self-checkout without a line. You simply scan your QR code with your Amazon app to set up your purchasing method; this will enable you to check out with your payment method set up on Amazon. Each item you add to the cart will also add to the screen on your cart showing you the balance in your cart. Once you are done shopping, you are free to go. Simply find the exit and your card is charged upon leaving. See how simple this solution is below.
Endless Aisle for Retail Marketing
The Endless Aisle solution enables a retailer to put technology throughout the store or in the dressing room for customers to scan the price tag and be able to find this item in another size or color in the same store, local store, or nationwide search to have the item delivered to your door. Just imagine opening your product selection this easily to your customer that is currently trying on clothing in your store; now consider also using the search data as a forecasting and ordering tool by store based on the queries made in your dressing room. No longer will the customer silently walk out displeased that they could not find what they wanted, nor do they need to inconvenience a cashier to call another store where they will also be displacing an employee from the floor to the phone, now involving two employees on one item search.
This solution continues to provide value far beyond size and color with simple cross-sells and up-sells that may also be served once in the dressing room based on RFID. With proper tracking, you will collect more data here and on your website to create a collaborative marketing effort for each user. This same screen may offer price checking, loyalty program updates, and serve up commercials.
Digital Shelf Talker for Retail Marketing
The digital shelf talker modernizes shelf level marketing to enable the ability to show a commercial for your product, right there in the aisle on the shelf. The pet brand Furminator is famous for its success in selling the hard-to-describe deshedding tool by only selling its products in retail pet stores that agreed to also use their TV with the looping demonstration that clearly shows the benefit of the Furminator. One pet store at a time, Furminator was able to prove in the early 2000s that digital shelf talkers are the way of the future. This launched this family brand into success and their trade show booth continued to grow just like their customer base and product line has. Congratulations Furminator for bringing the shelf talker into the digital present.
Another use for digital shelf talkers is to remove the confusion from complicated products. Whether it’s the oil that goes in your car or your windshield wipers, these products often have more complexity than what the average consumer is ready to have at their fingertips. An interactive digital display will enable the customer to enter their car make, model and year to find exactly the product they want and in exactly the location they need to find it. Now consider adding this same technology to an app, so whether they are in your store or your competitors, they will know who makes shopping easy. It’s that easy.
Mobile to Fixed Retail Payment Solutions
The mobile to fixed retail payment solution has so many more uses than just payment, but how convenient this is when you are working in a non-traditional retail setting. Consider the Macy’s women’s shoe salesman working on the 2nd floor of the Heralds Square Macy’s where the entire floor is filled with thousands of women’s shoes, chair clusters every 4-6 feet and over a dozen employees servicing the hungry appetite of women seeking shoes. This handheld device not only can plug into your many registers on the floor, but it can also serve to look up additional inventory, similar shoe styles, place an order from a neighboring store and finally you can keep your customer seated while they pay for their gaggle of shoes.
Another setting this mobile to fixed payment device makes sense is at a furniture store. A landscape with dozens of salespeople servicing many shoppers with product that are highly customizable. In a furniture store, the salesperson can customize couches on the fly with color and configuration options right at their fingertips to answer the questions they could not ask while browsing the website online at the store. These types of queries may also be saved and used to make your online FAQs more robust. And because this is a mobile to fixed piece of hardware, it can plugin and run more comprehensive sales reports, manage inventory, and communicate with other remote device users. This same device may also present a QR code to scan rather than taking the card or swiping the card. The future is here and it is looking quite bright for retailers.
The Airport Vending Machine
Now consider offering a retail store that never closed, yet also did not require around the clock staffing. Hudson News partnered with several technology experts to deliver such a retail solution. This enabled a set of test vending machines that provided a significant impact to the Hudson News bottom line by providing additional hours in the day to shop with a fixed cost of the vending machine. From sundries and toiletries to iPhones, cables, and electronics, providing a convenient after-hours solution for the tired traveler.
During the pandemic these fancy vending machines were also used by Hudson News to sell PPE in a touchless manner around the clock. The incremental savings and the passenger comfort increase provided both financial and customer satisfaction impact to the Hudson News brand.
You’re sure to see more of these pop up at an airport near you.
The future of retail technology is here and the only limitation is your creativity in solving challenges or identifying opportunities to increase your basket order, increase your conversion, or conveniently locate inventory and close more sales. Happy selling!
