For retailers, the ability to create and maintain a positive customer experience will always be one of the biggest predictors of your long-term success.
To stay competitive in retail’s constantly evolving landscape, it’s crucial to use all the tools at your disposal to create a customer experience that will make shoppers feel valued, and keep them coming back for more.
A well-designed retail app has huge potential to upgrade your customers’ in-store experience and forge stronger relationships with your target audience.
In this post, we’ll look at five ways retail apps can help you create a better in-store experience for your customers.
Tailoring the In-Store Experience With Data-Driven Personalisation
Prioritizing retail personalization is one of the most effective ways to improve the in-store experience, as it’s directed by data specifically to do with the way your customer base likes to shop.
With omnichannel shopping rapidly becoming the norm across various retail niches, and many of your competitors already using retail apps as part of their in-store experience, it’s crucial to ensure you’re using all the data you have to tailor the in-store experience to customers’ preferences.
Some of the key ways you can create an improved shopping experience at your retail store or shopping center include:
- Harnessing information from retail data collection platforms to better understand your customers’ behaviors and capture sales data such as footfall and car park figures will help you meet these demands and implement improvements.
- Leveraging push notifications to keep individual users updated on products or offers they’ve shown an interest in, and making sure your customers don’t miss out on flash sales or other time-limited deals.
- Building an algorithm-informed UX and navigation in your retail app which gives each user a different browsing experience to reflect their individual preferences.
By mining your customer data for as many insights as possible, provided it’s done ethically and transparently, you’ll be able to consistently provide the kind of experience your customers are looking for, and make incremental improvements to strengthen your brand loyalty over time.
Creating Intuitive Loyalty Programs
The discounts and rewards you offer customers provide a clear-cut way for your target market to compare you to the competition. This not only applies to the monetary value of the discounts you’re running but the overarching experience shoppers have when joining your loyalty programs and navigating them to get the best value.
“Clienteling” retail apps are designed specifically to blend the digital and in-store experiences, allowing customers to earn rewards at the checkout simply by using their mobile device.
They can also be used to give store associates useful information on the customers’ shopping behaviors, helping to contextualize their interactions and provide more personalized assistance.
Using your brand’s retail app as a platform to invite users to an intuitive, data-driven loyalty program can be a great way to kill two birds with one stone, providing an opportunity to not only help users find the best deals, but equip your in-store staff with the information they need to offer the best experience possible.
Providing Secure Payments for a Seamless Checkout Experience
Long queues at the checkout or cumbersome payment requirements can seriously decrease the quality of the in-store shopping experience and your audience’s perception of your brand. However, many retail apps can help you minimize potential sources of friction and make your shoppers’ experience as quick and frictionless as possible.
Making sure your retail app is fully compatible with modern, preferred payment methods like mobile wallets, in-app purchases, and one-click payments can all contribute to making transactions at your store fast and secure, while providing a high level of flexibility that shoppers can use to interact with your brand in a way that works for them.
What’s more, integrating payments with your own retail app gives you another opportunity to integrate loyalty programs with your checkout process, making it easy for customers to earn rewards as they shop and further developing brand loyalty.
Streamlining Try-On With Augmented Reality (AR)
One of the more forward-thinking technologies that’s changing the way we think about retail, augmented reality (AR) apps empower shoppers to get a better sense of how your products meet their unique needs.
One of the most common applications for AR in retail is virtual dressing rooms, where customers can see how items of clothing might look on them before they make a decision. Another common use for this technology allows customers to project scale 3D models of furniture and other household items into their living space, and get a more accurate idea of how they’ll look with the surrounding decor.
Obviously, there’ll be some disconnect between the way a certain product appears in rendered graphics and the way it will look in real life. However, giving your customers a “ballpark” idea of what owning your products might be like can eliminate a lot of uncertainty, and help a higher proportion of customers towards a purchase.
Aside from giving you a more efficient and powerful in-store sales pipeline, augmented reality try-on features can make the shopping experience markedly more convenient. Instead of taking the time to try on different items or make decisions about their home decor, shoppers can simply try out virtual simulations of the product in seconds, and get a clearer picture of how the product’s unique features will benefit them.
Product Details at Shoppers’ Fingertips
When modern retailers decide to invest more of their resources in ecommerce or brick-and-mortar retail, they often feel the pressure of having to make one of two tradeoffs.
In a purely ecommerce setting, customers aren’t able to see the product in-person, touch it, or examine the various features in detail. In a traditional brick-and-mortar store, on the other hand, shoppers don’t have access to the same level of product information and detail they can access through an ecommerce store.
With a robust retail app, you can furnish customers with the same level of detail they’d enjoy when browsing products online, even when they’re in your physical store. By using QR codes in product displays, or equipping your retail app with visual product recognition, you’ll allow shoppers to find out all the detail they could need from a product simply by taking out their phone and scanning a spot on your store shelves.
When you give your app this kind of functionality, you’ll achieve two clear benefits as a retailer. First, you’ll create a more streamlined experience for your customers by reducing the need for them to consult with store associates to find the information they’re looking for. Secondly, you’ll be able to optimize your in-store conversion rate by eliminating situations where shoppers decide against a purchase due to not having all the details they need.
Creating a New Shopping Experience
Whether your retail brand is long-established or a new kid on the block, a well-designed retail app has boundless potential for leveling up the in-store experience, helping your customers find the product that’s right for them, and developing a stronger, more loyal community around your brand.
We hope this guide has helped you build your understanding of the kinds of things retail apps can do for your brand, and given you some valuable inspiration for ideating the features you’ll use in your app.
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