13 Immersive Retail Experiences That Will Keep Shoppers In Your Store
If you’re a store owner, then you’re probably already aware that people aren’t just looking for products when they pass through your front door.
They’re looking for more: a customer visit is more than the transfer of cash for goods. People want to have a wholesome experience when they visit your store.
However, to keep shoppers in your store is not an easy task but an immersive retail experience changes that. The advent of technology has made the job of physical retail tougher.
Commercial transaction done on the internet has moved many retail stores online. To make the retail store look bigger and better, many retailers have revolutionized to come up with immersive retail experiences to entice and keep customers.
As such, it’s in your best interests to create a positive shopping experience for your customers. But how do you do this?
Below are some of the immersive retail experiences that will ensure shoppers visit and stay in your store. These are a few tried and tested methods you could try.
1. A Mindfully Decorated Store
There’s a big difference between a store that just packs items anywhere they’ll fit, and where there are only bright lights everywhere.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these stores, but they’re usually the lower-priced stores.
If you’re going to make a healthy profit and make shopping at your store enjoyable, then you need to have one eye on layout and decoration.
It takes a little bit more effort to have a few well-placed lamps lighting the way (as opposed to one booming overhead light), but it is worth it.
2. A Place To Feed The Senses
The overall feel and look of your store will be a good start, but they’re not the only areas you should focus on.
I’ll recommend that you look at what’s going on below the surface. Why? It also has a positive impact on a person.
A pleasant aroma can be a big help when it comes to getting your customers on board. You’re trying to achieve just that, right?
3. A Calming and Relaxing Atmosphere
No one likes to be anywhere when everything’s manic. As such, you should look at creating a calming and relaxing environment inside your store. This begins with your staff.
If they’re relaxed, not rushed, and moving slowly, then the whole place will feel that way. On the other hand, if they’re moving frantically and unable to cope, then that’s what the store will feel like.
Getting this right begins with hiring the right people, but you’ve also got a duty to make sure that there are always enough people working in the store.
Trying to save money by being understaffed will only backfire for your business.
4. Technology Related Experience
When retailing through immersive technology, you can utilize touch screens and digital signage to get the attention of the shoppers, communicate and eventually keep the shoppers in your shop.
AOPEN and BroadSign are a few of the companies that specialize in the sales of interactive signage.
5. Interactive display
Interacting with the product is the aim of an immersive retail experience. The interactive display makes this attainable. There are many functions that the display can give the customers. For example, when a product is highlighted, the animation of the product or a big 3-Dimension of the product is displayed.
More information about the product is displayed on the screen as the product is selected. The display can make recommendations to the shopper on what to buy or what others buy in conjunction with the product chosen.
6. Interactive mirrors
Another form of interactive display is the interactive mirrors in fitting rooms. The mirror allows the shopper to browse the product in the store and make selections without leaving the fitting room. It also allows the shopper to interact with the sales rep.
Some displays have personalized services e.g. collection of shopper’s detail through card or account creation. This information can be used to send messages to the shopper after shopping or determine the items in the shopper’s cart when next the shop is visited.
Read: Reasons for business failure with examples
7. Virtual reality
The use of VR is not for games and tech-inclined stores only. It is also being incorporated in almost any store you can think of. With the use of VR gadgets, it is easier for shoppers to navigate the store. One good thing about VR is that the physical store can be navigated remotely.
Virtual reality often allows the user to customize the product they are selecting like changing the colour, texture, size and other modifications. An example of a product on the VR grand scale is a virtual house developed by architects. After the 3-D design of the house, the customer can walk through the house virtually giving a real-life representation of the building and things in it.
8. IoT
Internet of things is the bridge between the physical world and the virtual world. This involves the use of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip on the product and readers to scan the chip. It also allows you to pick a product from an app, process it, and check out that product with ease.
The price and details of an item can be displayed once the scanner reads the chip on the product. This makes the retailing and sales process easier for both the retailer and the shoppers.
Technology that puts the customer in control keeps the shoppers in your store.
9. Set Store Policies
It is very good to have sophisticated in-store technological gadgets that appeal to all senses but without good front-line employees, I’m afraid all is for naught. The frontline employees of the store are the most important creators of the in-store experience.
For a good competitive edge, retailers hire the best staff they can get. They do not stop at the hiring process, they intimate the employee with the products and the store’s policies – which is the first phase of employee development.
It is a must to go further to develop employees by training them on how to have a good relationship with shoppers. The attitude of the frontline employee has a lot of effects on the shoppers and their willingness to purchase wares from the shop.
Employees should grow from being just a salesperson to being a consultant and friend to the shoppers. Immersive retail experiences are directly related to the relationship of frontline employees and shoppers.
10. Keep store up to date
Seamless transition between the online and the offline is paramount. Something that keeps shoppers in your store is the working together of the online store and the physical store.
Shoppers, even when they are in the physical store, continue to research and buy products. One mistake some retailers make is operating the online and the physical separately. If a store does not update its online store, an order may be placed based on the wares seen online which is out of stock in the physical store.
The shopper will lose interest in the store and score the store low for other potential shoppers to see. To this end, it is good to be present and active across all the channels the store has.
Alternatively, some retailers offer the opportunity to browse the store website in the physical location of the shop using a dedicated computer, screen or tablets. This is common with multiple stores that do not have all the wares in one physical location. This enables the shoppers to browse the wares you have and the variant you might not have on-site but can be delivered to them. For instance, you can browse nike.com on touch screens in most Nike stores globally.
11. Click and collect
Since I’ve been talking about in-store experiences, I will leave out the delivery aspect. Click and collect simply means the purchase of goods from the online store and physically picking them up in the store.
One of the advantages of in-store pickup is that it increases the chance of shoppers buying additional wares as they come to pick up. It should be noted that this process is not a simple one until it is mastered very well.
It requires a lot of coordination to manage orders, sales, and shoppers from a system. Sometimes separate systems can be used for individual stores but all stores must integrate seamlessly.
12. Easy checkout
The last on this list is easy checkout. You will be surprised how the checkout process can be a factor in retailing experience. No one likes a long queue. Hence, minimizing the time spent at checkouts improves the shoppers’ experience.
To cut the time spend on the queue or eliminate the queue, retailers use in-app checkout. This allows the shopper to pay and check out the product from the store by themselves. They just show the electronic receipt on their way out.
Another way to reduce the queue is multiple registers. The register can be mobile such as restaurants where shoppers can check out at their table without waiting in line. Some retailers also use Point of Sales (POS) machines to cut the queue.
13. A Perfect Temperature
The idea is to make your customers feel special like they’re being transported into another world – your store’s world – the moment they pass through the front door.
To do this, you need to focus on all aspects of your store and make sure that they’re conducive to a pleasant experience.
One surefire way to get customers on board is to have the perfect temperature inside your store.
They’ll find being in your premises a joy if it’s super cool indoors when it’s hot outdoors or warm indoors when it’s cold outdoors.
Conclusion
Immersive retailing experience is a significant feature that must be optimized to increase productivity and profitability. With the use of immersive retail to target all the shoppers’ senses, you can create an attractive and engaging experience that encourages the shoppers to make a purchase now and come back for more.
If it were boiled down to its most simple, everyone would be shopping online.
But they’re not – there’s something about the real-world stores that keeps bringing people back.
I hope you are about to implement these tips to make your shoppers’ in-store and retail experience sweet and magical?
