Click And Mortar Retailing
With the expansion of Online Shopping and the use of Smart Phones comes some new trends and terms.
"Show Rooming" – Today’s shoppers often carry a smart phone with them while they are shopping in a physical store. While looking at physical items, they scan the barcode on the price tag, or manually search for the same item online for a lower price, and then make the final purchase elsewhere, then leaving the store. This new type of shopper is most commonly referred to the "Scan And Scram" shopper.
Essentially, this situation sets the retail store as being nothing more than a product showroom for competitors.
To counter this, many stores are setting-up ways to more closely link the store shoppers with the physical store experience with their online activities such as:
- Setting-up In-store Web Kiosks.
- Arming sales staff associates with mobile devices such and iPads, and iPhones.
- Providing customers with a free Smart phone App that links to the stores website.
- Offering the same item with more varieties of options, such as Color or Sizes that might not be commonly available on other online sites.
- Offering "Site to Store" shipping, where there are no shipping costs to the customer. This creates a win-win situation for both the customer and the retailer… it makes things more convenient for customers, and gives them another reason to return to the store, which often leads to customers spending more. The idea of "Free Shipping", is a big selling point for customers, but also has the added benefit of reducing overall shipping costs for the retailer,and allows the retail to sell items that they do not normally stock in the stores. The bottom line here for the retailer is that all of this reduces flooring costs and overhead.
This overall marketing process is now commonly being referred to as "Omnichannel Retail", or "Integrated Retail", where there is a uniting of physical stores, ecommerce, mobile, and social selling into one seamless experience for the customer.
Often, this results in a difference with between retaining a customer and getting sale with lower margin, as opposed to completely losing the sale altogether.
If you would like some more information about options for configuring your companies retail environment to take advantage of these tools, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Sales Department.
– John