Knowing the consumer of the future begins with understanding the digital natives of today
Retail companies are experiencing change on many fronts. Digital transformation and how companies connect to and thrive with today’s new technology is, of course, a huge part; however, there is another challenge facing industry that is equally transformative: how does retail effectively sell to a digital society?
Millennials – those generally born in the early 80s to mid-90s and early 2000s – represent both an enormous opportunity and a great example in helping to address this question. IDC calls them the “5i” shoppers: Instrumented, Interconnected, Informed, In-place and Immediate. What is significant about Millennials is they were the first generation born into a truly digital society, but they continue to spend most of their retail dollars at brick-and-mortar stores. Why?
Research points out that millennials are extremely interested in experiential environments, seeking to customize their worlds. Their loyalty often depends on a customer-centric experience that’s tailored to deliver on their wants and needs right away – and they want it yesterday! Their underlying need is that they want to feel engaged and valued as customers.
So, how do we accomplish this? By offering a unique value proposition in the form of Microsoft Dynamics for Retail. Tapping into the power of Dynamics and partner solutions, leading retailers worldwide can deliver the connected, personal, and relevant experiences their customers expect.
Utilizing Dynamics, a company can bridge that gap between in-store and digital experiences with seamless CRM and e-commerce solutions. The aim, of course, is to hit millennials with an exciting customer experience that makes them want to engage and pull-the-trigger on a purchase. One major focus is leveraging interactive in-store components like digital signs, kiosks, touchscreens, and videos, making it easy for customers to get what they want, when they want it.
Another focus area is mobile. Retailers desperately need to turn “show-rooming” into sales opportunities with Omni-channel marketing strategies. Tapping into how customers use their mobile phones while shopping inside their store can yield immediate results. Many shoppers go into stores with smartphones in hand, looking for discounts, reading reviews over social networks, checking product details – and maybe even buying from a competitor’s website, all while using store Wi-Fi.
To take advantage of this behavior and combat potential competitive encroach, retailers can use Wi-Fi splash pages to promote special in-store offers, or use mobile location technology to push messages or offers to consumers when they are physically near a store. By knowing a smartphone user’s precise location within a store through Bluetooth beacons, retailers can deliver highly relevant and compelling content that can influence purchase decisions, while giving them more information about what customers are looking at, and for how long.
So while today, digital transformation dominates the conversation, we must not forget that there is another paradigm shift occurring – how buyers are drifting away from the coldness of the retail online space and into the warmth of brick-and-mortar. How well companies address this shift today could ultimately determine their future success, helping them stay competitive and relevant in the ever-expanding digital frontier.
To learn more, hear about how Pier 1 operationalized technology quickly to their ever-evolving business needs.
