11 Benefits a Retailer Can Provide to Its Customers
The retail world has been around for centuries, but it looks completely different every few years. With fast-paced trends and ever-changing customer demands, retailers face mounting pressures to keep up. Though it can be difficult to change strategies and adjust the customer experience, keeping up with the industry can make or break the success of a retailer.
Customers expect more from retailers than ever before. Retailers can offer robust benefits to serve shopper needs, retain current customers, and draw in new customers. To better take advantage of what customers are wanting right now, consider incorporating some of the following into your retail strategy:
Easy Shopping Experience
You should think of each customer’s shopping experience as a journey. Is your store set up in a way that enables them to be successful in their journey? Yes, things should be organized and easy to find, but put yourself in a shopper’s shoes to determine if your displays are positioned correctly and your stocks are shelved in a way that makes sense. Curating an easy shopping experience is foundational. We all know the feeling of getting comfortable finding our way around the store, so the faster you enable your customers to do that, the more likely they’ll be to come back.
Customer Engagement
You’ll have to get creative with this one, but if you can engage your customers in multiple ways, they’ll feel a deep loyalty to your store. A great shopping experience is one thing, but can you involve them even further? Perhaps let shoppers take a poll on a new product line decision or get their input on an upcoming campaign. Be sure to incorporate customer engagement without being seen as “annoying.” Use this benefit wisely!
Personalization
Small thoughtful touches can greatly enhance each customer’s experience. Encourage your staff to get on a first-name basis with as many customers as possible; addressing people by their first name will make them feel more welcomed than any other fancy benefit you could think of. In terms of digital marketing, use personalized campaigns and approaches for specific customer profiles. This will make your tactics stand out among your competitors.
Instant Gratification
When someone purchases something, they want it NOW. People have gotten so used to same-day delivery and other quick services, that retailers must be able to keep up. Even if you don’t have the same processing capacity as Amazon, boost your infrastructure investments to support faster delivery and better service.
Greater Inventory Options
There’s a reason that retailers like Walmart and Target are well-known and incredibly popular around the world: they offer larger inventories than almost any other retailer in existence. Being able to find the products they want with ease is every customer’s top priority, and with larger inventories, it becomes more likely that they’ll find what they need at your store. Having back stock of products that are failing to sell can be damaging but increasing the number of options available is often times a good investment for retailers.
Targeted Discounts
Everyone is on the hunt for the best products at the lowest prices; featuring targeted discounts and frequent campaigns is a great way to draw in customers who weren’t planning on shopping and keep those loyal customers coming back. You can offer discounts in an email blast, with a sign outside your store, or even feature discount codes at the register that customers can access. “Since you bought x product, you can get x product for 50% off” is a wonderful surprise when checking out.
Price Matching
As mentioned, pricing is incredibly important to customers. If they can find a product they want for a lower price elsewhere, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will go elsewhere to make a purchase. Unless of course, you offer price matching. If a customer can show your employees that there is another store nearby offering lower prices, it’s better to match a price than lose a customer.
Buy Online Pick-Up In Store (BOPUS)
People LOVE shopping online. In fact, 75% of people shop online at least once a month. By allowing your customers to make their purchases online, you are enabling them to shop at their leisure from the comfort of their own homes. However, instead of forcing them to wait multiple days to get their items, BOPUS allows customers to stop by your store later that day or the next day to pick up their purchase. It perfectly combines the comfort and ease of online shopping with the speed and efficiency of in-person shopping.
Loyalty Rewards
This isn’t a new feature offered by retailers, and most retailers already offer some sort of loyalty rewards program, but if you’re not doing this, you’re behind. Customers like to be recognized, and loyalty rewards programs ensure that they benefit from consistent shopping at your store. Depending on what industry you serve, you could offer discounts, free products, or even entries to exclusive giveaways.
Credit Cards
Credit cards are popular in the fashion retail space; it’s hard to leave the shopping mall without representatives from every clothing store asking you to open a credit card. While those questions can feel a bit nagging, retailers can make a lot of financial gains from offering credit cards and make it easier and more accessible for customers to access their products. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Facility Amenities
Free Wi-Fi and phone charging stations are some popular amenities we see from retailers today. Consumers are all about efficiency and providing even more services to them while they shop at your store offers a major efficiency boost. Even having a coffee shop in the front corner of your store can draw in more people.
Keep Up Or Lose
In the retail world, it is up to retailers to compete and draw in new customers. By offering a variety of customer benefits, you can not only retain customers but appeal to new customers as well. If you’d like to learn more about how to capture the attention of your customers using creative display tactics, read this article!
