By Rodney Bryant, Apple + IBM Partnership
The recent bankruptcies and shuttering
of apparel brands such as The Limited, American Apparel and Aéropostale, combined
with declining sales at some brick-and-mortar stores, point to the demise of the
physical store. Yet this past summer Walmart — the largest brick-and-mortar
retailer in the world — announced its acquisition of Bonobos, indicating it may
not be all “doom and gloom” for retail stores.
E-Commerce sales in the third
quarter of 2017 only accounted for
9.1% of total retail sales — because though the physical store may not be going
away, it is transforming.
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More and more retailers are
creating new kinds of shopping experiences — mostly by converging the physical
space with digital tools and technologies — to win over customers. These
experiences are happening in smaller showrooms, too, enabling retailers to save
on overhead costs, such as inventory and cost per square foot, while still making
it possible for their customers to touch, feel, try on and familiarize
themselves with the brand and its products.
Today’s connected, empowered
and tech-savvy customers want the best of both worlds — online shopping customization
and personalization with in-store services. It’s no longer enough to merely
allow customers to view online merchandise in the store. Digitally reinvented
showrooms are key for retailers to offer customers the hybrid shopping
experience they are going to great lengths to create for themselves.
One way to digitally reinvent
showrooms is by empowering their best brand ambassadors — or store associates —
with the right data and analytics. Store associates, when equipped with custom-made
mobile apps tailored specifically for the retail experience, can achieve
exponential performance and sales outcomes by offering customers a personalized
in-store experience.
Yet, according to the IBM Customer Experience Index 2017, 79% of brands do not have mobile-enabled associates
or do not provide their employees with mobile access to customer information.
When sales associates can’t access product data at shelf-edge or make swift recommendations,
brands lose their competitive edge and, eventually, customers.
Mobile-enabled associates can
access all the information a customer would have online — personalized
recommendations, size charts, warehouse inventory, customer shipping
preferences, purchase histories and much more. With data and insights in the
palm of their hands, associates can better engage, inform and impress
tech-savvy shoppers by their sides in completely new ways. The advent of mobile
and e-Commerce have fostered high expectations and retailers need to evolve to
deliver on their brand promise.
Consider Florida-based City Furniture, a family
owned and operated retailer creating new digital in-store experiences for
shoppers. City Furniture rolled out iPad Pro equipped with IBM MobileFirst for
iOS apps to their 400 store associates, replacing a manual-based process which
often slowed down converting leads to sales.
Today, mobile-enabled
City Furniture associates have access to customer data and analytics-driven
information to make personal product recommendations, leading to more than 28%
increase in in-home warranty revenue. Store
associates can now better upsell and cross-sell products, which so far has
resulted in 12% growth in the average purchase order per customer.
The benefits extend beyond
the sales associate too. Take, for example, product promoters who travel across
retail sites performing in-store promotions. Up-to-date product and promotional
information via mobile can improve the customer experience by streamlining
communications between the back office and promotions happening on the store
floor. M-Industry, one of the world’s largest private label consumer goods companies
and a subsidiary of Switzerland’s largest retailer and supermarket chain,
Migros Group, recently launched a new IBM-designed mobile offering to transform
how employees from their promotion agency work.
Traditionally, these promoters
relied on time-consuming, manual-based processes — primarily phone and email
communication and paper documentation — that impacted the overall quality of
the promotion. Now, iPads equipped with enterprise iOS apps ensures immediate access to real-time product and
promotional information, meaning M-Industry employees are better prepared for
their store visits and greater value is being delivered to the Migros customer.
Mobile is a game changing
factor for retailers with physical stores right now: placing less emphasis on
transactions and focusing more on customer engagement and experiences.
A hybrid approach bridging
the vast amount of information available online with in-store, mobile-enabled
associates are going to be where brand promises are delivered and customized
experiences created. More importantly, it represents an opportunity for
retailers to thrive in a period of industry disruption.
Rodney Bryant is a retail
expert and consultant for IBM
Global Business Services. This self-proclaimed geek combines his
technology-obsessed passion to over 19 years of retail experience in mobile,
commerce, marketing, and merchandising to create profitable and engaging
customer experiences for retailers around the world. Currently Bryant is a
subject matter expert and key team member developing relevant, efficient, and
forward-thinking retail applications, built in native iOS Swift, in support of
the new and notable Apple + IBM relationship. For more than 13 years, Bryant
built a reputation at Best Buy for integrating new technologies and approaches
to business that served as the foundation of some of the companies most celebrated
successes, including Geek Squad and Best Buy Mobile.
