Game Changing Capabilities for In-Store Small Business Retailers

May 29, 2024

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Have you read any of the recent articles debating the subject of how Amazon will ultimately destroy in-store small business retailers? Well, don’t place big bets on Amazon just yet. Small business retailers have begun to figure out how to compete.

Retail is a dynamic industry with its own set of multifaceted and diverse business processes and requirements. Small business retailers today are challenged with addressing multiple disruptive technologies and the demanding “Digital customer” who like to order products and services using more than one touch points.

This includes both online and offline at their convenience of location and device. In such a rapidly changing environment, small business retailers are likely to drop their ‘Run the business’ strategy hat and wear the ‘Change the business’ one.

Today the strong focus is on innovation. There are new store formats being launched along with multiple selling channels such as online, kiosks, mail catalogues and call center etc. There is a need for retailers to become truly omni-channel by providing seamless shopping experience to the customer no matter what channel, format they use for their shopping.

Advantages for in-store shopping

A recent business intelligence report listed 6 reasons customers prefer to shop in-store as opposed to on-line as shown in the figure below:

Certainly goes counter to the on-line growth we have seen in the last decade, doesn’t it? Here are some game changing capabilities small business retailers are using to hold their own with their on-line counter parts:

Apps for fun and engagement

Going to see a movie in a theater is a shared experience. The Timeplay app for use at Cineplex theaters enhances a shared experience while providing rewards that are valuable to me – scene points towards free movies. A great example of the growing value and utility of apps for small businesses.

This app allows everyone in the theater to compete in a movie trivia game where the mobile devices are used to submit answers to trivia games on the screen – like bar games of old. The top winners get Scene points and snack bar prizes. My grandchildren like to compete with me, we all have fun, and I eventually get a free movie entry.

Apps for pre-ordering

Pre-ordering is another awesome application of small business apps. As an example, the pizza ordering process has a process to it that lends itself well to mobile ordering. There are a number of options available, but the one that works for me isn’t an app at all. Dominos pizza has a mobile enabled website. Their ordering options are very simple, and best of all, my most recent orders are front and center when I login.

Dominos does a great job of showing the status of your order and lets you track your order through the process. It would be fantastic to do this with orders for bigger items.

Animations are fun for first use, but not when I want to just order the same order I had last time for pickup on the way home from the airport after a long day. No need to pay on the app. I pay when I get there, so no need to enter card numbers.

If they ever put this simple interface on an app and stored my login it would certainly have a place on my mobile. For now it’s one of few bookmarks on my mobile desktop – and they even remembered to provide the icon on the site so it’s easy to see on the mobile.

Showrooming

Rather than competing with showrooming, brick-and-mortar stores are certainly beginning to see its advantages and embrace it.

“Stores will become like museums—we will go to see something, to learn and be entertained,” predicted Thomas Keenan, adjunct professor at the University of Calgary and author of a book called Technocreep, which explores the future of technology.

Further, beacons—sensors placed around stores that communicate information to smartphones—will track information such as which products customers linger around. The beacons can then push information on those products to customers’ mobile devices, allowing them to order from their devices and have merchandise shipped to their homes.

Beacons are already deployed at large retailers as a way to provide more interactive shopping experiences. There is nothing prohibiting small retailers from employing is in similar ways. They don’t need the GPS element so much, but can certainly utilize the messaging elements.

Payments

For small transactions with regular customers, enabling payment via a barcode and stored value card is the best way to enable payment without using the pinpad at point of sale.

While this payment capability is very useful, I still see shoppers re-loading their stored value card at the POS. That is a value of both of these stored value apps – the cards can be reloaded on the app. No need to hold up the line or enter a PIN at the POS. I think most people aren’t comfortable setting it up, and there is some need for culture shift there.

Apple’s foray into mobile payments signals the mobile payment model may soon be ubiquitous. By 2020, not only will more transactions take place via our mobile devices, whether it’s our smartphones or wearable technology leveraging near-field communication (NFC) technology, we’ll also see the emergence of even more streamlined payment experiences.

The goal for companies is to make the payment process as seamless as possible. Starbucks’ new mobile payment app—which allows customers to pre-order and pre-pay for beverages via their iPhone before arriving at a Starbuck’s location—is just one recent example of how businesses are moving toward more frictionless payment and checkout experiences.

Mobility commerce

Use of technology in-store (e.g. web kiosks), and customers own smart phones devices is one of the latest capabilities to see growing use. Retailers are using store Wi-Fi, mobile apps, and beacons technology.

Also, social media is used to target customers with personalized offers, which can be done using next generation customer analytics. Improvement is underway to payment processes by making them more agile and beat the queues options with mobile POS, mobile wallet, mobile money to money transfers etc.

Hyper-personalization

Customer expectations for personalization across all customer interactions is growing in demand. Many retailers loyalty programs allow shoppers to save “loves” and purchases (both online and in-store), while leveraging a shopper’s profile to link specific customer attributes with products for sale within the store.

Information is accessible across devices – even on iPads at store counters. By providing relevant, accurate services in exchange for customer data, businesses are paving the way in persona-driven customer innovations.

Customers want this because they can get better offers and more tailored recommendations to what they want, when they want it. By combining customer data gathered online and in-store, retailers can deliver a customer experience centered on value and convenience in exchange for customer information, and enabled by new apps and mobile technologies such as beacons.

Gartner has predicted that by 2017, 89% of marketing leaders expect customer experience to be their primary basis for competitive differentiation.

Transaction capability

I have purchased movie tickets using the Cineplex app for years now. It works well and interfaces to Passbook to simplify scanning for ticket pickup. One opportunity to make the app even better is to simplify payment. Mobile doesn’t lend itself well to entering credit card numbers. While I understand the challenges of storing credit card numbers, online retailers already do it, and I would be willing to store mine as it would easily cut the transaction time in half.

From my perspective, using the app allows me to buy my tickets on the way to the theater while someone else drives and skip the purchasing line at POS or kiosk at the theater. It may not be a value to all users, but skipping lines is a popular past time for most people. Retailer Bonus: lines are shorter for those that choose to buy tickets onsite!