Online shopping is more important than ever Shopping for goods and services online is nothing new, but the pandemic accelerated the rate at which business owners opened e-commerce shops and consumers shopped online. In-person shopping is still on hold Given the highly contagious nature of COVID, public health experts around the world discouraged in-person shopping in Personal shopping services will increase One way that retail locations have dealt with the decline in foot traffic has been through the practice of personal shopping, which has store employees shopping for the customer.
Automation in pricing will continue to rise An item's price is usually determined by a number of factors, but in recent years, more and more companies have relied on automated technology to ensure their prices are properly set.
Marketing and customer engagement will see changes How customers engaged with small retail stores had already begun to shift to an online, mobile-friendly model, and the pandemic accelerated it. Social media will continue to introduce customers to brands Social media is a major driver of the customer journey and online sales for many companies. Business News Daily Staff. Andrew Martins has written more than articles for business.
Andrew writes about office hardware such as digital copiers, multifunctional printers and wide format printers, as well as critical technology services like live chat and online fax. Andrew has a long history in publishing, having been named a four-time New Jersey Press Award winner.
Grow Your Business. Updated Keep an eye on these small business trends and predictions this Here are eight holiday marketing trends to leverage this year. Future of Social Media: Trends to Watch. Social media is always evolving. Retail and ecommerce, on the other hand, may be in for more permanent changes. Here are some ways the dynamics of retail and services may be impacted near term and in the years to come by the coronavirus aftermath.
But millions have been furloughed or unemployed, many from local businesses including retail shops. In many places, keeping dollars in the local community and supporting small businesses post-pandemic will become more important than ever.
Communities have a way of coming together after catastrophes like New Orleans did after Hurricane Katrina. Online grocery adoption has been slow in the U. Apptopia reported a spike in app downloads for e-grocery services. For consumers, one challenge with e-grocery is getting used to selecting and ordering a large number of items. Normally, the time to adjust to this process can be too much of a hurdle, but forced quarantines have accelerated that process.
The convenience may be too much for some consumers to ignore post coronavirus. Buy-online pick-up in-store BOPIS and curbside pickup have become increasingly popular, but similar to e-grocery have seen a sharp increase because of coronavirus. For retailers, this comes with both pros and cons. So, there are some hefty benefits for stores to keep the adoption of these services high. Today, this habit has extended to all sorts of products, even low-commitment items like groceries.
Salespeople must be ready to deal with extremely knowledgeable customers who ask detailed information about specific items, and who know what options are available in different stores, and how much these options cost. Your staff should be at least as informed about your products as your customers are.
Make sure you focus on employee training during their whole career, and not just when employees are newly hired. Give all your salespeople a chance to stay updated with courses and specialized training.
For example, if you are selling professional kitchenware, your staff could benefit from a cooking course, and from videos demonstrating differences between each product line you stock. Technology can also help.
A mobile POS directly connected to inventory will help them deliver knowledgeable service, easily. On the POS, your employees can check which products are available and where, look up item descriptions, images and specs, and even compare products , or order them from other store locations or vendors. Today, a typical shopping experience may start with a customer researching products on a smartphone while visiting your store.
The customer may then, a few days later, buy the item on your e-commerce site, and select to pick it up in one of your store location. And this is just the beginning. But how do retailers stack up? The customer journey will only get more rich and complex. For many companies, this will mean having to work on two fronts: changing business culture within the workplace, and looking for new unified commerce technology to unify the channels within a single view.
Can you keep track of how your customers contact you, what they add to their favorites on your eCommerce, and what they buy in-store? Are you connecting online and offline with services like click and collect? Can you see where all your inventory is, and move it where needed? A functional eCommerce website is now a necessity. In , online retail sales represented just 5.
In the future, as margins shrink, you may have to change your strategy for your brick-and-mortar stores, changing your focus from selling products to facilitating omni-channel interactions. If you do not yet have a functional e-commerce site, this is a necessary investment for your business, and an urgent one. As you build your eCommerce, here are some points to keep in mind:. Retail's Changing Landscape By Verifone. Related Insights. Contact Us I want to talk about new payment solutions Contact Us.
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