Retailers are more interested than ever in luring customers back to their branch stores. Store concepts such as the Future Store are paying attention to this. In them, the online and offline worlds come together. A journey into the future of stationary retail.
The store doors open. A digital signage display welcomes customers personally and presents them with offers perfectly tailored to their wishes and needs. At the same time, they receive a discount coupon via an app. The in-store navigation then leads them to exactly the products they are interested in. Via the store's WLAN, the app knows at all times where they are located. If customers like an item, they pull out their smartphone and scan the label. Thanks to Dynamic Pricing, it is possible to show them an individual price. In addition to product information, the app also provides information on the variants of the product available in the store, including sizes, colors and possible features. If a product variant is not in stock, but still available online - customers can add it to their shopping cart with a single click and have it delivered directly to their home. They can add further items to a wish list - for direct take-away or later delivery.
Exploring new store concepts
Depending on the industry, the exact structure of further service offerings may vary. Let us imagine a clothing store. An interactive mirror assists the customers during the fitting. They can use it to request different sizes or other product variants from the shop personnel directly from the cabin. The mirror can also suggest fashionable accessories or put together additional items for a matching outfit.
At the checkout, customers are again personally welcomed and informed about the status of their online order(s). They redeem the discount coupon, and at the same time the app draws their attention to the items on the wish list. If necessary, they can take these with them directly. Payment is made by smartphone.
Customer experience between the online and offline world
The Future Store store concept offers customers the best of both worlds: The haptic shopping experience and competent advice on site as well as the many extra services that e-commerce facilitates. Thanks to such store concepts, stationary retailers can not only stand up to the competition from online retailing, but also achieve a level of customer experience that would not be possible without the customer experience in the real world. Since they can pick up customers online and offline, they have two strong levers at their disposal across all channels to emotionally charge their own brand and thus achieve a higher level of customer identification and loyalty.
In order to achieve this goal, a perfectly coordinated combination of innovative hardware and software as well as smart systems such as analytics and CRM is needed to optimally compile customer data.
