Let’s face it, the retail and shopping experience is changing at lightning-fast speeds to keep up with changing consumer habits and technology innovations. Nowadays, everything we want is at our fingertips, whether it’s groceries, new shoes, or a new car. We no longer need to visit a store; our devices and other technology advancements are our outlets. As consumers, we have tons of options to buy products regardless of if it’s online, offline or a combination of both.
The combination, often known as Omnichannel, is where we are seeing many retailers going.
What is Omnichannel Retail?
As stated on Bloomreach.com, “Omni-channel retail is a multichannel approach to sales that focus on providing a seamless customer experience whether the client is shopping online from a mobile device, a laptop, or in a brick-and-mortar store.”
According to Harvard Business Review, 73 percent of all customers use multiple channels during their purchase journey. Only when the customer has gathered as much information as possible from a variety of sources to support their purchase decision, will they decide to buy from a retailer.
How do in-store digital experiences help the Omnichannel experience?
Omnichannel retail increases the comfort of consumers and we’ve seen many examples of these experiences across many retailers. Within digital signage ‘type’ solutions, Acquire Digital has been ahead of the curve with many industry-leading solutions such as:
Store Wayfinding: allows consumers to set a shopping list at home and calculates the best route to take to pick up all their items while in-store. Combining data from the retailer’s inventory management system and planogram allows for a seamless shopping experience for customers combining the online experience to in-store.
If you are looking to see a first-hand look of an example of what the solution could look like, check out the Retail Smart Shopping Wayfinder and Advertising Kiosk demo:
Endless Aisle Kiosks: extend the digital experience to allow for online shopping for additional products or ship-to-home capabilities for larger products.
Digital Pricing Label Displays: provides the ability to show dynamic product pricing and additional content about products. By adding a QR code, users can scan a QR code to see additional content via their mobile device. Acquire’s Shelf-Edge solution is truly a first of its kind when it comes to an omnichannel experience.
Check out Acquire’s Shelf-Edge solution in action:
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR): Using the Acquire Vision platform data collection and analysis play a vital role and help shape the entire experience. While ‘big data’ pulls together the solution and shapes the role customers play in the shopping experience, other interactive solutions like Interactive Advertising and Virtual Try-on experiences provide other ways to increase engagement and ‘Omni-Channel’ outlets.
In today’s retail climate, data collection is everywhere.
This can be seen with ‘cookies’ when you visit a website or when you provide your contact details for retailers’ loyalty programs. The data collection is used to enhance the experience, but it also helps tailor the shopping experience to what a customer is looking for. It gets fun when you can personalize the in-store experience to the same level of personalization a user receives online.
As the enhancements continue, we will see the Omni-Channel experience evolve, and Acquire Digital is here to bridge the gap from the online to the in-person experience.
