80% of shoppers leave a bricks and mortar retail outlet without buying anything
The Retail Bulletin Omnichannel Summit: Commentary by
Ken Davies Fuit
After listening to the various keynote speakers at the Omnichannel Summit today, there was a theme of fact that was mentioned by more than one speaker. That was the fact that 80% of shoppers leave a bricks and mortar retail outlet without buying anything.
This is linked to the fact that there are many consumers who treat a shopping trip as a leisure activity or a day out, and head into city centres and retail and leisure destinations with no specific products in mind to buy. It is in fact very likely that these consumers have no intention of buying anything that day.
IKEA is an example of a retail outlet where people are very likely to go for a day out and the only thing they buy is meatballs for lunch.
Retailers know virtually nothing about these shoppers because they have not bought anything, and if they are effectively window shopping, they are also unlikely to have interfaced with a sales assistant either.
Most omnichannel strategies are about dealing with customers who are actively interested or in the process of buying goods or services and how the various platforms and touch points can give a seamless experience. But how do you find out what window, or day out shoppers are interested in?
Many experts feel that beacons are a way to find out this information, but this only really gives you location information not specific product information. Plus beacons are only effective if the consumers allow the retailer to interact with their smartphone by opting in. What the user then receives is driven by the retailer and could consist texts, push notification or emails. In theory a good idea, but do consumers really want their phone buzzing in their pocket or bag every time they walk in a store, just to discover it’s a push notification for a product they don’t want? Especially if they are just window shopping.
The Fuit app allows retailers to not only track customers by their location but also by the exact products they are interested in, by putting the user in control of generating this information without them ever knowing. They do this by using the app to try and win products and brands they want, in the stores they visit. By using the barcode information to recognise the product the app gives the user a chance to win it, right there in the store.
The app can also track a customer’s entire shopping trip if they use the app in more than one location; giving valuable data on all the products they are interest in.
Of course the app isn’t just about data, is about giving consumers another reason to go shopping. We fully expect users of the app to have a Fuit day when they go to a retail environment with the sole intention of window shopping and trying to win items off their wish list. These people are that 80% who leave shops without buying anything.
The advantage for the retailer, apart from the data, is that when someone wins a product through the app, the retailer effectively makes a sale, as Fuit pays for the item that the user has won.
Happy consumer, happy retailer.
