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Endless Aisles – Harnessing In-Store and Online Shopping

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ETP blog Endless Aisle

Endless aisle is allowing customers to make use of technologies such as specially designed in-store kiosks or other intuitive systems to order items that are currently out-of-stock in that particular brick-and-mortar store. It is a concept that extends beyond the inventory that in tangible form is available in the store at a given point in time. Thus, endless aisle allows retailers to forge a strong link between customer demand and inventory. Retail companies that have been quick to embrace cross-channel strategies have already begun adopting the endless aisle technology to boost their sales further.

But what makes endless aisle click? Here are some of the noteworthy benefits:

Retailers can downsize unnecessary floor area of their brick-and-mortar store. This trimming of floor space will therefore result in higher sales per square foot. Implementing endless aisle also helps retail owners counteract in-store revenue bleeding as a result of showrooming. Retail companies can thus capitalize on reduced cost of rentals and optimize the available floor space. Further, retailers can reduce the effort of displaying large products physically at the store with the implementation of endless aisle. Products that have low inventory turnover can thus be removed from the shelves of the store. Endless aisle can help boost conversion rate due to the enhanced shopping feature at the physical store and help improve customer loyalty.

With the advent of endless aisle, the need to depend on warehouses to stock-up merchandise is diminished to a large extent as retailers can enter into tie-ups with manufacturers to ship the ordered products directly to the consumers from the manufacturer’s end.

In-store consumers can enjoy the comfort of e-shopping without compromising on the traditional ‘touch and feel’ factor. Also, real-time visibility of available products at the physical and virtual store empowers the customers to shop on their own terms.

With the help of data processing and analytics, retailers can display only those products that have a high turnover in-store while offering the not-so-popular merchandise through kiosks, tablets or computers so that customers can try and buy at the same time.

As the consumers of today are in the driver’s seat, demanding the best service and setting up high expectations, retailers must opt for investing in the right tools and technology to successfully implement endless aisle in their business thus ensuring that they do not end-up facing the reality of lost sales situations.

Southeast Asian consumers’ reviews about e-Commerce: Infographic

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E-commerce and online shopping have transformed the entire shopping experience. Today, consumers can go online and buy almost anything conveniently in just a few clicks, thanks to e-Commerce. Here are a few stats based on Southeast Asian consumer reviews about e-Commerce.

ETP Blog Southeast Asian Consumers e-Commerce Reviews Infographic

E-commerce companies need to be aware of customers’ pain-points and take necessary actions to make the shopping experience a pleasant one.

Four Emerging Trends in this Revolutionary Era of Shopping

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Everything about how the modern day consumers research, shop and purchase is changing, and established retail brands and businesses must learn to adapt. A new era of shopping has emerged leading to 4 trends:

ETP blog four-emerging-trends-in-this-revolutionary-era-of-shopping

From ‘online-to-offline’ is gaining momentum – Big online-only players such as Amazon are increasingly eyeing and realizing the value of traditional stores to grow and generate profits. In the age of omni-channel retailing, it is insufficient for large e-commerce companies to exclusively sell online as brick-and-mortar stores are the go-to destinations where consumers get the chance to touch and feel the products. Hence e-commerce players are setting up their own physical stores to allow consumers to try products prior to buying, or they are partnering with local stores to enable shoppers to collect the products they have purchased online. The convergence of the physical and digital channel into a seamless omni-channel world is accelerating.

Stores stay relevant, important, but they are evolving – An online only retail world doesn’t seem to be a possibility and brick-and-mortar stores are far from getting extinct. Even today, offline stores continue to drive the overwhelming majority of retail sales globally. However, stores are no more merely places to make purchases; they are now evolving into entertainment hubs and social destinations allowing shoppers to explore and connect. This new wave of “experiential retail” is fast gaining momentum.

Delivery options are growing and time frames shrinking – Urban online shoppers today can expect same day deliveries and next day deliveries after placing an order thanks to retailers exploring new options of delivering packages more efficiently and economically. Retailers are trying to further reduce delivery time frames with the help of existing logistics partners or signing on with startups. And while groundbreaking technologies such as self-driving cars and delivery drones could revolutionize delivery, retail companies are using the right technologies enabling products ordered online to be collected at the stores in a matter of hours.

Shopping patterns are changing globally – None of the above trends are restricted to a particular region or a single market. Similarly, innovation is not limited to any one region. For example, China was where expansive urban delivery networks made same-day e-commerce deliveries common in large cities, and it was there that the term ‘online-to-offline’ originated. So also, in other retail markets around the globe, the connection between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail stores is swiftly growing in importance.

The bar for retail brands and businesses has been raised higher today than ever before and at the same time, business growth and increase in profitability remain elusive for even the most forward-thinking companies. In order to compete, retailers are getting more creative in their strategies of how they plan to leverage the opportunities of both online and offline channels. While doing so, they are thinking of redefining the in-store customer experience, preparing for rising delivery expectations and merging the online and offline channels so as to function seamlessly. Consumers are connected, technology savvy and well informed. They are demanding a rapid change and retail brands are responding. A new era of shopping has begun!

Why should retailers consider ‘Click-and-Collect’?

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ETP Blog Click and Collect

Shopping online or through a mobile phone these days is very common and every day more and more consumers engage with retail brands through these channels during their shopping journey. Having an omni-channel driven retail business is therefore essential.

Omni-channel retail entails a combination of channels used by the shoppers to research, buy and return products. And while there are multiple permutations of these channels that shoppers can choose from, ‘Click-and-collect’ or ‘Buy online, pickup in store’ is one combination that retailers need to take advantage of and here’s why.

To start with, ‘click-and-collect’ is a customer-centric approach which allows convenience of shopping. It makes it easy to browse and purchase products, and gets rid of the waiting time for shipping and delivery of the order.

‘Click-and-collect’ marries the advantages of online/app based shopping with the advantages of the brick-and-mortar stores. It allows a shopper to purchase a product online quickly and conveniently and allows them to touch and feel the product live at the store. For retailers, this translates to getting traffic and conversions on their online sites or mobile apps as well as increasing footfalls in the store.

‘Click-and-collect’ also presents opportunities for retailers to cross-sell and up-sell, thus driving higher sales. According to ICSC, 69 percent of customers who went to pick up their orders in-store ended up buying additional items. Thus, retailers can take advantage of this technique by persuading shoppers to buy more while they are at the store to pick up their order; especially during the shopping seasons or when impulse shoppers visit the store.

Since ‘Click-and-collect’ requires both online/mobile and brick-and-mortar stores to complement each other, it provides an edge for such retailers over those who are purely e-commerce players. Retailers must not miss out on this opportunity which will ensure more share of the customers’ attention time and eventually more share of the consumers’ wallets.

As shoppers these days are savvy and demanding, they expect the best experience. ‘Buy online pickup in-store’ is one way retailers with the right omni-channel retail solutions can provide a seamless and superior cross-channel shopping experience, which customers will cherish and come back for more.

Omni-channel success: Weaving omni-channel into the fabric of the retail organization

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As the systems and processes are in silos, it is very difficult for retail businesses to deliver a truly satisfying customer experience. Retailers need to rely not only on technology but also on processes to enable omni-channel. In the midst of this evolution, retailers cannot afford to sit back when it comes to transforming their business to omni-channel, as the technologies that were cutting-edge last year could be obsolete soon.

Instead of carrying on with ad hoc systems and processes, retailers need to adopt a holistic approach to make their business omni-channel. Regardless of the channel used by a shopper to make a purchase, retail systems and processes should enable a smooth transaction experience. In other words, the systems and processes must be well integrated to help retailers support a channel-agnostic order and experience.

Necessarily, retailers need to develop new techniques and processes in this new omni-channel world:

  • Having a single view of the customer across all channels to be able to offer timely and relevant promotions
  • Initiating the best possible omni-channel fulfillment decision intelligently, at the moment of the sale to make maximum profit
  • Planning for and managing inventory right and ensuring it is in the right place at the right time
  • Communicating the details of multiple shipments clearly when fulfilling a single order
  • Monitoring performance when shipping from a store, just as when shipping from a centralized warehouse

Needless to say, investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in technology that will be outdated in a year or two will be counter-productive for the business. Instead, retail owners must scale their investments and protect against obsolescence. Retailers require the ability to determine the technology that has a staying power when it comes to omni-channel, some of them being mobile POS, mobile wallet, omni-channel order management, queue busting and so on.

Omni-channel Success: Mobilizing stores to serve omni-channel customers

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It is time for retailers striving to be customer-centric to reconsider the role of their brick-and-mortar stores and in-store sales associates in-order to support the modern age context, immediacy, personalization, and information. The entire shopping journey experience needs to be seamless and a singular process where both the offline and online shopping must be extensions of each other. The concept “endless aisle” is one way of addressing this, where retailers place tablet kiosks at the end of aisles so shoppers can research and purchase products as they would do using their computers or mobile devices. This allows the consumers to access and order from a full catalog of available inventory, even those that are unavailable at the store.

Enabling a seamless, unified omni-channel experience must also extend to shopper interactions with store associates and customer service both online and in person. As shoppers expect store associates to be knowledgeable and informed, this translated to the need of associates’ ability to sell and assist the shoppers both online and offline. For example, store associates must know how to place an order and ship it to the customer if an item is out of stock in the store. And they must know how to check the online order status for a customer in the store.

Being cognizant of the fact that 37% of shoppers end up purchasing additional items when they are shopping for products in stores, a sales associate with accurate, updated information and history of each shopper can boost conversions, thus increasing the top line and helping retailers reduce markdowns on unsold inventory, both of which leads to higher revenues.

The execution of this process depends on aggregating omni-channel data and employing advanced analytics tools on the aggregated data to derive information about every shopper that can be used by the store staff. It mandates that retailers break down channel and department silos, align goals across channels, and encourage and incentivize employees to deliver on the omni-channel promise.

Also, giving shoppers visibility into the inventory can go a long way as customers expect not only to be able to view inventory available in-store and on the website but also the inventory number to be accurate real-time. The retailer’s challenge therefore is to display the inventory accurately including unit inaccuracy, shrinkage, and sales that day.

Needless to say, adopting new fulfillment methods and commerce approaches, including buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS), ship from store, buy-online-return-to-store, and save the sale, to name a few, is necessary. If an item is not available at a store, shoppers will be pleased when presented with a choice such as shipping from another store. Or shipping from the nearest store, when they are shopping online. The upside of taking an order online and shipping items from stores is the ability to lower in-stock inventory, decrease shipping costs and offer customers faster shipping. But achieving this goal requires solid planning and mapping stores to the online warehouse, which is only possible when leveraging fully integrated systems that offer cross-channel capabilities.

The right Order Management System can help companies make intelligent fulfillment decisions and streamline orders across channels to better serve customers while optimizing the use of inventory and reducing fulfillment costs for optimizing profits. Previously, inventory planning and replenishment were siloed: the sale began and ended in store (or online). Now the lines are blurred: the sale might start online but inventory might come from a physical store.

It goes without saying that an effective omni-channel environment is built upon integrated systems, departments and channels, with measurements and compensation that are aligned to support an omni-channel strategy and approach.

All of these changes require buy-in and leadership from the retail executive team. This team has to set the tone and expectation on service and training, focusing on all aspects of sales along with all customer touch points and their interconnectedness. And it all hinges upon ‘omni-channel’ being woven into the fabric of the retail organization.

Omni-channel Success: Focusing on customers instead of products

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focusing-on-customers

In spite of all their efforts, why do so many retailers do not get it right in executing an effective customer-centric strategy? The reason is – in umpteen cases, retail brands are strongly focusing their efforts on selling their products instead of concentrating on equipping their business for delivering experiences that address the needs of the shoppers while harnessing their buying intent. In order to create and deliver the right omni-channel experience that is fulfilling, retailers and brands must think beyond their products – rather they must think ‘customers’. Customers are at the center when it comes to omni-channel retailing and this is evident in the traits that omni-channel retail businesses need to focus on.

Some of the essential traits of omni-channel retail are:

  • A consistent, unified, seamless and positive shopping experience across all retail touch points and interactions.
  • Single version of the truth about each customer/shopper.
  • Flexible, responsive and personalized interactions via all touch points.

One of the proven ways to ensure satisfaction of today’s consumer expectations and increase brand loyalty is by creating online communities where likeminded shoppers can seek and share advice on products, and immerse themselves in a unique brand experience.

More retailers are tapping into the power of user-generated content to open new avenues for connecting with their consumers. One case in point would be the example of a successful footwear and accessories company which post the launch of their website in 2014, brought the social media activities of its customers to the fore by enabling the site to pull in images from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter tagged with the brand name and feature them on the homepage. Shoppers were also encouraged to upload their own photos showing how they incorporate the brand’s footwear and accessories into their wardrobe. This managed to generate a positive buzz among the customers to see their pictures showcased on the brand’s official website, enhancing brand visibility and loyalty.