Re-thinking the in-store experience

By David Smith, Senior Interactive Strategist

In recent months there has been a lot of chatter about the future of brick and mortar retailers. Price-slashing and cost-cutting by online-only retailers, primarily Amazon, has created a shopping environment that encourages consumers to “shop” in store, but buy online.

At SXSW this year, an extensive discussion revolved around this very topic. Here’s our take on the discussion.

Make shopping an experience again

Will most traditional retailers ever be able to compete with the low-overhead, high-volume model of the Amazons of the world? Probably not. But, should they even try?


Rather than competing at the lowest common denominator, SBC’s view is that retailers must take advantage of their biggest asset: their stores.

Retailers need to make shopping an experience for their customers. Give shoppers a reason to come to the store.

Is it about coupons? Sure. Is it about promotions? Absolutely. But most importantly, it’s about making a visit to the store something that consumers want to do – something that inherently brings more value than clicking and checking out on their screen.

Technology can help
So, how can we as marketers bring value and depth to the in-store experience? How can technology help?

A lot of people at SXSW were talking about this. Interestingly, the biggest leap being made in the discussion wasn’t necessarily what the technologies are – many have been around for a few years – but how they should be used. This represents a maturation within the space from a feature focus to an experience focus, and it’s a significant shift.

At the conference, the following considerations cropped up again and again:

• How to re-think coupons and promotions so they make more sense and will bring more value
• How to encourage engagement in store and movement throughout key departments via a customer’s mobile device
• How the footprint and product sort could potentially change, given the new, digitally-focused environment.

Here are our thoughts:

Give consumers coupons when they actually need them
It’s long been the model of retailers to provide their loyal shoppers with coupons related to their in-store behavior. As Consumer Relationship Management modeling has improved, the coupons have become more relevant and, in theory, more valuable.

There’s only one problem, people forget they even have those coupons.

Here’s a potential solution — a simple near field communication-based kiosk or hotspot that shoppers tap with their smartphones as they enter the store. It would reference their loyalty account in the store’s app and automatically serve up the same coupons we’ve been providing for years, at check-out, but people will actually use them.

The bonus? Not knowing which coupons you’ll get creates a moment of excitement and surprise that shoppers can only achieve by coming to the store.

Improve wayfinding while curating serendipity
Outdoor mapping, based on tapping into your phone’s GPS, has been prevalent for nearly a decade. For most people, looking up driving directions on Google Maps has become second nature. But what about once that person gets to their destination?

Indoor mapping has become the next great frontier for many tech-minded retailers. Companies like Micello, Point Inside and Google have gone to great lengths to crack this next level of navigation in hopes of enhancing the consumer experience.

But why?

• Making it easier for the shopper to get around will improve the shopping experience and, by association, the shopper’s opinion of the brand
• Retailers would have the opportunity to highlight seasonal promotions and specials for shoppers who are already in the store, potentially influencing their shopping patterns and basket size.
• Consumers can hunt for in-store-only specials, coupons and promotions by finding the hotspot on the store’s map and moving their “little blue dot” into the trigger zone. Surprise!

The potential for enhancing the in-store experience for both retailers and shoppers is endless. Retailers can make the shopper’s phone another powerful communication tool. Consumers can use it as another way to enhance their in-store experience, simultaneously balancing utility and the joy of discovery.

The biggest challenge right now is making the technology work. There are a number of hurdles, the largest of which being able to accurately pinpoint a shopper’s location within the building.

One company seems to think they’ve got it figured out – and they just might.

ByteLight, a startup out of Massachusetts, has been developing a technology that can accurately isolate a user’s location inside of 1 meter, as well as send data to a shopper’s smartphone, through rays of light sent by special LED bulbs.

The technology is very young, but extremely compelling. It seems to solve the conundrum many in the space have been dealing with for years – the inaccuracy of GPS inside buildings. Keep an eye on it.

Extend product selection without extending the footprint
One of the largest complaints from both retailers and their customers is the fact that there’s a disconnect between the product selection in the store and what’s available online.

Retailers want to be able to showcase as many SKUs as possible. Consumers want to know if the shirt they’re looking at is also available in green.

Technologies like augmented reality can help solve both problems.

Imagine walking into a department in your local Bed Bath & Beyond that consists of little more than a white backdrop and a series of markers (images that have been tied to an augmented reality experience). In seconds, using just the customer’s phone, there’s an easy way to showcase those snow blowers that most shoppers had no idea were even available, without having to keep a single product in the store.

Moments later, that same shopper could be browsing through hundreds of sets of cookware that would be otherwise impossible to keep on the shelves.

The store gets to showcase more product, the consumer gets to see things she didn’t even know were available to her. Win-win.

In the long run, applications like this could even result in a shrinking store footprint that allows retailers to feel more like members of the community, rather than intrusive big-boxes.

Remember the real problem we’re trying to solve

The potential applications for these technologies are extremely compelling and exciting for marketers. But, in the end they’re just tools – tactics. As such, it’s critical that we remember the larger challenge – the thing that will let retailers beat the online retailers.

How can we make the shopping experience better?

Filtering every decision through this lens will keep marketers honest while we’re navigating these new opportunities.

In the end, a better shopping experience makes for a happier customer. A happier customer is a loyal customer. And a loyal customer, well that’s the most valuable customer there is.