“Customer is the king” and has always been. More so in recent times, when retail customers walk into the store, they are in a commanding position empowered with a Wi-Fi enabled smartphone and access to exemplary online shopping tools. The shopping experience is no longer confined to the time during which a customer is in a store as most consumers shop anytime and anywhere with the mobile phone to search for products, lookup for stores, compare prices, and read reviews. Brick-and-mortar retailers should open their stores for in-store Wi-Fi and should confidently pursue new opportunities with the right Wi-Fi solution. Not only can they enhance their customers’ shopping experience with their brand, they can also use Wi-Fi to gather valuable insight into purchase behaviors to drive sales and improve operational effectiveness.
A 2012 study conducted by IBM surveyed shoppers in eight mature and seven growth economies (Winning over the Empowered consumer: Why trust matters, IBM 2012) and found that 45% of consumers use two or more device technologies to shop and make buying decisions typically a PC-based laptop and a mobile device. Customers today have multiple online outlets to shop in addition to the stores and expect a seamless experience in terms of placing the order, pickup-and-delivery and exchanges-and-return in any combination of outlets. Mobile connectivity is an essential part of this shopping experience wherever the customer happens to be to access product content, do comparisons and read community feedback in real-time.
The right Wi-Fi network is the need of the hour for the retailers to connect the stores, warehouses, distribution centers and contact centers to support the deluge of mobile devices, transform the shopping experience and ignite new levels of customer brand loyalty. Modern Wi-Fi infrastructure is transforming the in-store customer experience in five popular ways:
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- Empowering customers to self-service when in the store;
- Customer retention and loyalty;
- Mobile Point-of-sale and line busting;
- Digital signage & display advertisement; and
- Support wide array of Wi-Fi enabled store devices.
Empowering Customers To Use Self-Service When In The Store
The most successful retailers realize the value of in-store Wi-Fi for providing comprehensive coverage and Internet access for customers. By deploying a Wi-Fi guest access solution, retailers give customers the ability to check product details, check gift registry and availability in the aisle. Once they are in your store, the convenience of being able to order or purchase immediately helps increase-shopping satisfaction, avail personalized offers and loyalty programs and use mobile device for way finding and navigation. With the customers in the store network, retailers can encourage the use of the store website or a mobile app to avail online services, participate in online community and promote on social media websites.
The number of people carrying a device with active Wi-Fi has reached a point at which there is a statistically significant sample of people in a store at any given time. Depending on the store and customer demographics, typically 40% to 70% of all visitors are carrying a phone with Wi-Fi that can be measured. The right wireless network and analytics software can use Wi-Fi signals to accurately represent total foot traffic inside and around the store. With analytics software, retailers can transform the in-store Wi-Fi into a consumer analytics tool for optimizing retail operations and maximizing per-store revenue:
- Optimize capture rate: Optimize the capture rate to generate thousands of dollars in additional sales per day, per store. Identify shopping applications that customers use and collect numbers of walk-by customers, visits, and percentages of people that come inside the store.
- Increase duration rates: Track visit durations and identify shoppers staying longer than 30 minutes to evaluate engagements. Use this data to tailor the sales process and improve in-store operations.
- Improve service levels: Monitor line lengths, sales associate availability, and wait times to improve service levels.
- Improve engagement with customers: Analytics data lets you track traffic patterns, assess promotional effectiveness, personalize in-store coupon and “specials” when customer is in the store, and capture data for maximizing social media effectiveness.
- Enhance customer loyalty: Track visit and walk-by frequency, repeat visits, and recent visits to identify premier customers and develop program for increasing loyalty.
Customer Retention And Loyalty
Many retailers believe that a mobility strategy is important to enhancing their brand and customer loyalty. In-store Wi-Fi helps retailers better integrate their sales channels. For example, they can implement features such shipping products to the nearest store or the customer’s home, and unify a shopper’s shopping cart. Data gathered across channels provides a more holistic view of the customer and increases opportunities for upselling and cross selling. In retailers’ lexicon, this unification of channel is referred to as omnichannel integration and Wi-Fi is a key technology enabler for implementation. With omnichannel integration through Wi-Fi, stores can stay connected with the customer reducing the risk of incomplete purchases and build loyalty through flexible channel offerings.
Mobile Point-Of-Sale And Line Busting
Digital Signage & Display Advertisement
Traditionally retailers enticed customers with paper handout advertisements, static display advertisements made of plastic or paper and refreshed these ads utmost once a week. And all these ads were managed and distributed by the headquarter stores without any room for customization either by the local store or a franchisee store. With a Wi-Fi enabled store network, retailers can now deploy digital signage solution on Smart Televisions with built-in Wi-Fi. With the flat panel TVs available in different sizes, retailers now have the option of installing in any nook or corner vantage points to grab customer attention and yet, manage to display digital content without having to draw a network cable for connectivity. With the right Wi-Fi network implemented, retailers can deliver rich multi-media content streamed to these televisions 24/7 with room for local store customizations and customer retention programs.
Support Wide Array Of Wi-Fi Enabled Store Devices
Wi-Fi is transforming the way the devices in the retail stores connect to the network and yet, usher the flexibility, PCI compliance and reliability of traditional tethered devices. Conventional stores can be logically viewed as 3 zones — Checkout and point-of-sale zone, Executive and store manager offices and the backend warehouse & distribution area. All these 3 zones have variety of devices used for different functions like — product scanners, coupon printers and payment registers in the checkout area, while laptops, tablets like iPads in the manager office area and lastly, computerized forklifts, Wi-Fi enabled inventory robots and more in the warehouse area. With the right Wi-Fi network, these devices can be supported irrespective of the floor coverage, RF wireless signal interference and with different quality of service.
In summary, Wi-Fi as a network connectivity option along with the proliferation of myriad mobile devices has dramatically transformed the retail landscape. Successful and agile retail stores have deployed a modern Wi-Fi network and have liberated the customers and the employees alike to enjoy the benefits of ubiquitous access to all online resources whether online and in-store.
Sreekanth Kannan has more than 15 years of networking experience, having worked for Vmware, Cisco and Sun Microsystems. In his current role at Aerohive as Senior Marketing manager, he leads the marketing strategy for key industry verticals and for key Aerohive technology partners. In his previous roles, Kannan led the product marketing for Vmware’s virtual desktop infrastructure products and business development for branch networking products at Cisco.
