Creating a Better Retail Experience to Supplement Online Shopping

Retail company websites bring a whole new realm of accessibility and information to their customers. This is ultimately a good thing; however, it can result in a tug-o-war between the online presence and the physical store itself.

Showrooming, a fad that has been occurring for some time now, means that customers will use a brick and mortar store simply as a place to test out a product, and then buy it online later. There are many physical store costs, such as rent, utilities, and staff wages, that can’t be covered if customers are going somewhere else to buy the product, like the Internet. This is causing retail locations to change the way they operate; they realize they need to attract customers to want to buy in-store, and this usually consists of creating a shopping experience that customers can’t get online.

The shopping experience is impacted by a lot of different areas:

• Purchase Process – The process of shopping is incredibly important. The process of the purchase should be well thought out and make sense in the consumer’s mind…after all, they will be the ones carrying out that process. Eliminate steps in the process if they are too time-consuming or if the customer doesn’t understand why they are useful.
  • POS systems can be life-savers in this regard. The best systems are quick, intuitive, and offer options to the shopper that they couldn’t get before.
  • To simply avoid the conflicts between online and retail shopping, many stores join the two concepts. Offering in-store iPad kiosks or granting customers the ability to use their iPhone to compare prices across the Internet gives them less reason to shop from home—they can get the full experience at the store.

• Back-End – For things to be fluent on the front-end, they need to be fluent on the back-end as well; the process should be just as easy for the employee as it is for the customer.
  • Again, POS systems work well for this. Employees can use a familiar, everyday device like an iPad or Mac while using intuitive controls to help guide the process along for the customer.
    • Some behind-the-scenes software can help to run these POS systems smoothly. For example, Bushel, a device management tool, can download any app directly to these POS devices while simultaneously enforcing security policies and syncing settings to all devices, making sure they’re working correctly at all times.

• Staff – To many of your customers, your staff is the face of the company. They are the most direct representation of how the company is going to help them. To keep employees on the same page, managers should promote good morale, be transparent, and communicate expectations.

• Store Layout – It’s more important than the interior design of any apartment or house you will ever own (unless you have gobs of guests at your home every day wanting to give you money), so putting in the effort to make the inside appealing will pay off. An in-store design should make customers want to physically be in the store as opposed to skimming through yet another website. Sight, smell, taste, and touch can all be huge drivers in the buying experience.

Physical locations are still an important shopping experience, even though online shopping can be very convenient. It gives your consumers options and can attract a different audience if your consumers aren’t fully online yet. While it can be difficult to successfully implement a comprehensive shopping experience without a large investment of time and capital, keeping each of the parts listed above in mind can help to drive traffic to your stores.

Contributed by Charles Edge, Product Manager of Bushel. Bushel is a cloud-based device management solution for the Mac, iPhone, iPad and iPod devices in your workplace, that you can use for less than your daily cup of coffee. It’s designed to make the complex tasks, like tracking inventory and distributing apps, simple so anyone can utilize. Three devices are free forever, and each additional device is just $2 per device per month, with no contracts or commitments.