Now is make-or-break time for retailers, as a typical retailer generates about 20% of its annual revenue during the end-of-year holiday season. For some, the season is a coming-out party for new merchandising, marketing, point-of-sale, customer service, and other technology-based features, both in-store and online. For other retailers, the season just magnifies their shortcomings—technological and otherwise.
Some retailers focus on the wrong things, providing lots of tech bells and whistles but falling down when it comes to basic services. As we head into a holiday season in which retailers are treating every day as if it’s Black Friday or Cyber Monday, the very best are keeping these five priorities in mind.
1. Know thy customer. When Oracle asked 13,000 consumers in 12 countries how retailers should be adapting their use of technology to improve their shopping experience, more respondents (54%) picked “promotions and offers that are more relevant to me” than any other choice. It’s the realm of marketing and sales automation software, coupled with sophisticated data analytics. And it requires retailers to understand their customers on an individual level.
As for how retailers then get more bang for their marketing buck, technology also helps them identify who a customer is when he or she walks into the store or visits a site, which specific promotions or offers drove them there, whether they’re repeat customers, and what their purchase histories are—preferably across online, mobile, and in-store channels.
2. Stop just talking about “omnichannel” and start delivering on its promise. For the past few years, retailers have talked breathlessly about giving customers a seamlessly connected experience across their physical stores, social media, catalogs, websites, and other channels—from the time they start researching products through buying and returning them. But a large percentage of retailers still aren’t delivering on some basic omnichannel features, according to an evaluation of 120 retailers in 20 categories conducted by the US National Retail Federation a year ago.
For example, only 60% of the retailers the NRF evaluated offered free shipping of online orders as a standard practice, and only 32% employed “click and collect,” whereby customers buy from them online but pick up the items in a store. Only 39% of the store associates who were evaluated were empowered to look for an out-of-stock item online or in another store, and only 53% of the retailers noted on their websites whether products were also available in-store. Only 33% offered in-store Wi-Fi to ease the mobile shopping experience.
While retailers have made great strides in other omnichannel areas—supporting multiple devices, letting customers buy online and return in-store—there’s still much more work to do to unify commerce.
- Related: Oracle Retail Solutions
3. Don’t get distracted from delivering the basics. When Oracle asked those 13,000 consumers about which technologies do the most to improve their shopping experience, omnichannel was only their fifth-highest tech priority, topped by the aforementioned personalized promotions and offers, followed by the desire for more payment options (45%), more information on product availability (42%), and more convenient delivery and ordering options (41%).
What’s more, when asked what matters most to them when shopping, irrespective of technology, 25% of survey respondents chose product quality assurance, 17% said value, and 13% named product availability. Whether it’s through omnichannel or other tech investments, retailers need to nail the basics of quality, price, and convenience to win customer loyalty.
4. Customize and differentiate where it matters; standardize where it doesn’t. Related to the above, not every technology feature is a source of competitive advantage that requires customization.
Where technology differentiation truly matters for retailers is in deriving unique and specialized customer and merchandise insights from data and in operating their supply chain, planning, merchandising, point-of-service, commerce, and other systems at scale. Where it matters less is in trying to customize each and every business process. The value comes from adopting automated and integrated best practices embedded in the technology.
Speed to market and ease of technology implementation—the hallmarks of cloud computing—trump unique services in many cases. Meantime, retailers can spend more time and resources building relationships with customers, offering personalized service, making shopping more convenient, offering the best value, or whatever else it is that differentiates their brand experience.
5. Understand that customers are now calling the shots. The average number of touchpoints shoppers under age 50 have with a retailer and its brand, before they actually buy something, is about 3.5, according to Forrester Research.
Shoppers are comparing products, inventories, and prices site by site, increasingly from mobile devices. Most still visit physical stores (being able to see and touch items is a top priority for 12% of those 13,000 consumers in the Oracle survey). And those 3.5 touchpoints don’t even factor in the research consumers are doing and discussions they’re having on social media and product review discussion boards.
The customer is now calling the shots on what is sold, where, and how. And retailers need to soak in what customers are telling them and adapt quickly.
The best retailers have already integrated these lessons into their holiday business plans. While it’s too late to make large-scale changes now, it’s not too early to start planning for next year.
- Related: Oracle Retail Blog
