How location-aware experiences can supercharge customer engagement and build basket sizes
As consumers shift toward hybrid shopping journeys, retailers seek new ways to marry their brick-and-mortar shopping journeys to their online experiences. Mobile apps play a key role in the evolution, allowing retailers to create personalized experiences.
What are location-aware experiences?
By adding location to your brand-owned mobile apps and leveraging technologies such as geofences and beacons, you can more effectively engage customers who opt-in to location tracking. You’ll also have access to tools and data to drive app adoption, increase loyalty and elevate your brand perception.
Geofences:
Define your store’s boundaries
or other locations
Beacons:
Identify key points, such as a curbside pickup window or section of the store
Apps powering location-aware experiences allow shoppers to:
Enjoy multiple opportunities to interact more deeply with the
retailer’s product offering, which can include accessing additional
item information than what is available on the shelf
Drive engagement by providing timely and contextual experiences
Boost conversions with push notifications sent when a customer enters or leaves your store
of consumers said they bought additional items in-store while picking up their online purchases.
Source: Doddle
Increase basket size with dynamic in-app content and offers based on a shopper’s location
By infusing their mobile apps with location, retailers can achieve numerous benefits:
Let’s explore how location-aware experiences can help retailers enhance customer engagement, build basket sizes, and delight customers.
85%
Enhance customer engagement in the brick-and-mortar store environment
The pandemic and resulting shutdowns forever altered shoppers’ expectations. Consumers
, too. Retailers are responding with better first-party apps to build brand loyalty in a world where consumers have grown accustomed to immediate gratification. Innovative solutions include marketing automation, push messaging platform, SMS messaging and other important capabilities.
embraced a wider range of digital behaviors
and their
preferences for physical interactions
changed
Location platforms enable retailers to continue driving in-store customer engagement in this new environment. They also give brands a way to deliver a journey that’s responsive to customers’ in-store behaviors and aligns with their more modern desires.
For stores struggling to staff key positions,
this one-two benefit is a game changer
empowers store staff and sets them up for success with valuable visibility. For example, when associated know customers’ expected pickup and/or arrival times, they can streamline their order ahead and pickup processes. This gives associates greater efficiency while giving customers enhanced experiences.
. It
of retail leaders list staff turnover as their biggest challenge.
Source: Nudge
In addition, location data lets retailers give shoppers curbside pickup instructions at the right moment and notify them about other available services.
27%
The online levers retailers pull to entice digital shoppers – including displaying inventory availability and fulfillment timeframes, shipping options, complementary products, etc. – can yield good results in-store when paired with location-based marketing. And as supply chain challenges and inflationary pressures mount, applying these tools effectively is more important than ever.
Retailers can address out-of-stocks by offering in-store shoppers discount codes for products available on the shelf or give them the option to purchase their preferred product through the brand’s ecommerce channel with shipment to either the store or their home. From addressing out-of-stocks to making store visits more productive, the right location technology can help save sales and increase basket size.
of those say they shop at multiple retailers due to out-of-stock issues.
Use targeted integrations to save sales and build basket sizes
56%
According to a PwC Survey:
of shoppers say being unable to purchase a product due to an out-of-stock is a top in-store shopping issue.
37%
Source: PwC
An app that’s designed to deliver location-aware experiences can help to minimize the fallout from inventory gaps.
Users may open an app in-store when:
They can’t find the products they want
They discovered what they’re looking for is out of stock
That’s the perfect opening to engage with customers and give them a reason to complete their transactions with your brand. Since they likely can’t get what they want in-store, consider displaying a free shipping coupon for any items purchased through the app. Or show other locations nearby that have the item in stock.
With stores in
49
states and a vigorous ecommerce business, JOANN sought to enhance in-store revenue and entice customers to purchase products while in a store, even if the item wasn’t in stock locally.
Case in point: Location helps JOANN increase revenue
The problem
The solution
Results
A combination of location-aware experiences and location-based marketing that lets shoppers:
Use the app’s in-store mode to place an order for items not available on the shelf.
Receive a free shipping promotion that incentivizes them to complete the transaction.
JOANN has generated more than 25,000 incremental orders with a 718% return on investment in their location platform.
Through these methods,
When the technology recognizes that a user has left a store’s geofence, you can still act on the data from their visit.
How long were they in the store?
Did they make a purchase?
Analysis:
Don’t confine cross-selling and upselling to the store.
Action:
Offer the ability to connect with a stylist for some ideas about accessorizing the items they bought today or suggest a vest that goes with their new shirt.
“It’s like having a digital store associate that can give customers an impeccable experience.”
Coby Berman, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder, Radar
For customers, the lines between in-store and online shopping experiences are blurred. The same is true for retailers. Fortunately, location-aware technology empowers you to build out a hybrid experience that delivers highly personalized marketing and support in real time, no matter shoppers’ physical locations.
Delight shoppers with a highly personalized hybrid shopping journey
Browsing Online
When you know customers are browsing online, you can use targeted tools to make key elements of the in-store experience available to them. For example, you might offer them the option to either ship their purchases to their home or to create a basket that’s ready for them to come in and try on at the store.
By serving up the right messaging and offers in a digital session, a location-aware solution allows you to engage shoppers based on their location, drive foot traffic into a physical store and derive the benefits of a well-orchestrated hybrid shopping journey, so you can:
In-store Shoppers
of shoppers will spend more per visit when they have a positive in-store experience.
Source: Nudge
Location enables more effective and compelling personalization by allowing you to deliver relevant experiences and messages to the right audience at the right time and place.
63%
“Depending on where your shopper is located — region, store, even a specific section of the store or department — you can more effectively determine what they need at that moment. This is key to delivering better experiences.”
Coby Berman, Chief Operating Officer
and Co-Founder, Radar
— region, store,
“Depending on where your shopper is located
even a
specific section of the
store
or
department
— you can more effectively determine what they need at that moment. This is key to delivering better experiences.”
Coby Berman, Chief Operating Officer
and Co-Founder, Radar
You may display different product recommendations in the app than if the shopper was in the next city over, where it’s simply chilly and dry.
With location data as a guide, you can add any other data you may have about that customer’s behaviors, past purchases or preferences to make sure the right snow-ready products get in front of them. The use of Bluetooth beacons, for example, helps to understand where a person is within the store footprint. Dynamic digital displays can then direct shoppers to boots that go well with the coat they just added to their digital basket.
Is it snowing at that store?
Location is a core part of a shopper’s story. It provides a way to deliver a hybrid shopping journey that’s seamless and compelling. When you use it to engage them, you create a better connection with your brand. For customers that have opted in, location-aware technology helps to enhance engagement in brick-and-mortar environments. It opens up opportunities to save sales that are in jeopardy due to out-of-stocks. It supports deep personalization that helps increase conversions and build basket sizes.
They’re dynamic mobile app experiences that show users the most relevant content and features based on their location.
What are location-aware experiences?
Access digital tools that bridge shopping experiences from online browsing to in-store buying, such as referencing a saved item list in-store that was created while browsing at home
Request a service—from connecting with a personal shopper to asking for an expert’s advice about product features
Receive more relevant and personalized messaging, along with discount codes and other offers, while they are in the store
Access digital tools that bridge shopping experiences from online browsing to in-store buying, such as referencing a saved item list in-store that was created while browsing at home
Staff associates focus on customers who need their help the most.
providing onsite users with a more relevant — and more impactful — in-store experience.
Location platforms enable retailers to continue driving in-store customer engagement in this new environment. They also give brands a way to deliver a journey that’s responsive to customers’ in-store behaviors and aligns with their more modern desires.
With a location platform, you can more effectively
bridge the gap
between the digital and physical
For example, using location to unlock self-checkout options through the app lets:
Customers pay through their phone and skip the line; and
Location platforms enable retailers to continue driving in-store customer engagement in this new environment. They also give brands a way to deliver a journey that’s responsive to customers’ in-store behaviors and aligns with their more modern desires.
Location platforms deliver powerful and effective benefits. Customers who are physically in a store have an omnichannel experience, complete with the convenience of online shopping plus the high-touch service provided by store staff. And shoppers who visit a location for curbside pickup and other hybrid offerings enjoy an elevated experience through highly responsive support from onsite associates and streamlined hybrid transactions.
Learn More
Radar is the leading geofencing platform. We’re connecting the digital and physical worlds with location infrastructure for every product and service.
radar.com/contact
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Extend the experience around additional in-store visits, with access to personalized services and enhanced product information.
Incentivize the user to complete their transaction.With a location platform, you can more effectively
Keep the customer shopping within your footprint, either physical or digital.
Keep the customer shopping within your footprint, either physical or digital.
JOANN needed a way to drive larger basket sizes while customers were shopping in-store. It also needed to save more sales and deliver a more seamless shopping experience by giving customers an opportunity to purchase goods from JOANN instead of heading to a competitor if they couldn’t find items on the shelf.
The solution
The problem
Results
A combination of location-aware experiences and location-based marketing that lets shoppers:
Revenue growth
A more seamless purchase experience
The solution
The problem
Results
How long were they in the store?
Action:
Ask if they found everything they needed or if your brand can help them in some way.
Analysis:
If it was a very short amount of time, they may not have bought anything.
Did they make a purchase?
Retain more revenue, since physical purchases
typically have lower return rates versus online.
Connect shoppers with sales associates who can further elevate their experience; and
Enable in-person product discovery for complementary items;
Capitalize on the in-store environment to increase impulse buys;
Capitalize on the in-store environment to increase impulse buys;
and capabilities they’re accustomed to leveraging online. You can:
For
in-store shoppers
, your app provides one-tap access to all the information
Display more item details than are available on the shelf;
Serve up recipe completion suggestions or product recommendations based on products already in the shopper’s basket; and
Show any current promotions or loyalty rewards the customer can use.
Delivering a brick-and-mortar experience that’s made more relevant and contextualized through app-based interactions and information is key to customer engagement. It extends your marketing strategy in an organic way and elevates the connection between shoppers and your brand.
Browsing Online
In-store Shoppers
It’s a common frustration made even worse by the numerous adjustments to store layouts and traffic flows that have occurred in recent years. But your customers shouldn’t need to send up a signal flare when trying to navigate a brick-and-mortar store.
Location technology to the rescue.
Who hasn’t wandered the aisles of a store looking for the product they need?
Geofences and beacons help retailers collect first-party location information that can be used to display in-app information, offers, and product or service suggestions based on a shopper’s physical location in-store.
Retailers can use first-party location data to create location-based marketing campaigns that use a shopper’s physical location to alert them about a product or offer available nearby. Retailers can also serve up complementary items and product recommendations that are nearby — with in-store locations pinpointed — based on the customer’s previous purchases or an active digital basket.
Location technology to the rescue.
Who hasn’t wandered the aisles of a store looking for the product they need?