The Visible Value Blog

Now you can greet every customer personally as they walk into your store. You can see how they move, and when they linger longer in a particular aisle, you can nudge them to buy with a special offer, just for them. 

And you don't even have to be in the same town as the store they're shopping in. You can do it all with remote management of your in-store wireless, and real-time data analytics, reaching customers through their mobile devices.

In retail today every interaction matters, whether you are communicating with customers, motivating your associates or empowering your supply chain, the overall experience is everything and can certainly make or break your business.

The retail industry is evolving faster than ever. All retailers face the challenge of meeting their customers’ increased demands and must quickly transform how they engage with them across a multitude of touchpoints. It’s therefore essential that retailers are interacting with their consumers seamlessly across every channel, right through the customer journey.

Today’s brand experience is influenced by more touch points than ever before. Customers shop online, in-store and even interact with brands on social media. I have noticed that retailers are making more and more connections with customers.

Shoppers now expect all of these elements to match up and integrate with each other – because it makes life easier. This is the basis for our One Store concept. Customers don’t actually see channels; they only see One Store regardless of whether their visit is online or in a physical store. 

It’s obvious that online shopping has transformed buying behaviour and customer expectations. Amazon in particular has been more influential than any other, serving up an ecosystem of unbiased product reviews and revolutionising delivery.

With this retailer you can see instantly if an item is in stock, and get an accurate view of how long it will take to get to you. Data collected also allows the retailer to personalise the experience and empower the customer through helpful sections such as ‘you may also like’, ‘frequently bought together’ and ‘customers who bought this item also bought’. These create cross-sell and up-sell opportunities for retailers, whilst giving customers information that helps them to feel more informed. 

A word of warning: if you’re looking at technology to run a loyalty scheme, don’t let it take the place of good, basic retail service.

Technology has made it easy and affordable to run sophisticated loyalty programmes, even for retailers with only one or two stores. 

A report on personalisation from Drapers and Retail Week says that 79% of customers are increasingly demanding a personalised approach from retailers.

Only 79%? I would have thought we all want to be respected as individuals by the retailers we buy from. For me, that's the bottom line of personalisation: treating people like people.

I’m old enough to remember the days when milk, bread, eggs and juice were brought to the front door on a daily basis. Now only businesses get that kind of service.

However, grocery deliveries from large supermarkets are increasingly popular, surging up 35% in 2014. It seems, many of us would rather avoid the hassle of marching around the supermarket. It also appears that everywhere I go I see a sign promoting ‘Click & Collect’, so I wonder if we are in the midst of a step change in retail delivery.

Since summer is on the way, I recently made a trip to the garden centre.

After choosing a few smaller items, I went to choose a new barbeque. A member of staff guided me through the various models and even showed me a demo video from his personal iPhone. I made my decision and was asked to go to the till to check the stock and pay. 

In this post we’re introducing you to ‘One Store’, our customer-centric approach to omni-channel retail. It provides organisations with a path to success in today’s complex retail landscape.

One hundred years ago bricks and mortar was all retailers had to think about. Success was simple; it came from selling the right products to local customers – and delivering a personalised service from a convenient location.