Driving Retail Sales, Engagement, And Efficiency

Juan Hoyos, Cinq North America

2020 was a pivotal year for the retail industry. While consumers’ spending patterns and shopping behaviors had been shifting more online before the COVID crisis, the pandemic significantly accelerated this change. As a result, retailers large and small had to cram years of digital transformation into months to engage with shoppers and drive sales while stores were closed and the world sheltered in place. As global economies start to reopen, retailers continue to make significant investments to create an enhanced omni-channel experience that combines the best of digital with amazing in-store experiences.

Yet, the drive for an integrated online and in-person shopping experience comes with new challenges and costs. A recent survey by PayPal and BigCommerce shows that 33% of U.S. consumers prefer shopping in-store but say that the benefits of shopping online outweigh the trade-offs. Still, Forrester expects that more than 70% of retail sales will take place in-store.

How can retailers use technology to find the right balance and ensure that the customer shopping experience remains paramount - regardless of the consumers’ preferred channel? Here are three areas that retailers can focus on to improve engagement, sales, and overall shopping experience:

Personalized Journey and Engagement

Retailers must remain attentive to a customer’s individual needs, especially as they gear up for back-to-school and return-to-work shopping. Not every product is right for every customer. The same goes for a shopper’s level of engagement and preferred channel. Shoppers interact with the brand online or offline - with a mission in mind. The personalization of the customer journey is critical to letting customers feel they are understood and seen while ensuring the process is efficient and sticky to complete a sale. A unified experience that channels the customers in the direction they want improves loyalty, increases sales, and reduces costs.

Logistic Intelligence

Like other industries, retailers have been adding new systems on top of old ones, resulting in separate platforms to manage inventory, employees, online sales, and in-store sales. A fragmented, patched-together system leads to inefficiencies and increased costs and raises risks for logistical issues. Demand is growing for overarching, integrated platforms that can automate and manage all internal and external logistics for improved effectiveness and efficiency. Having accurate inventory management, in-store employee and goods coordination, traffic monitoring, and vendor communications under the same umbrella helps retailers retain better control over operations and deliver exceptionally smooth customer experiences.

Data Management

Data analytics in retail matters more than ever. The first step is centralizing all data from the different departments and areas of business. Bringing disparate data into one central repository in the cloud guides better business decisions for everything from customer marketing to workforce planning to inventory optimization. Inaccurate or insufficient use of data can lead to poor customer communications, faulty inventory forecasts, and ineffective staffing. For example, Cinq worked with a major retailer that was using its parent company’s off-the-shelf e-commerce platform, which was outdated and not tailored to its target market. As a result, Our team developed a proprietary e-commerce management portal that integrated with all back-office functions, CMS, marketing campaigns, and major finance and tax functions. The development yielded a 10% increase in conversation rate, a sharp increase in online traffic, and a 20% decrease in cost per purchase.

The large shifts in consumer shopping behaviors over the past year are driving an urgent need to stay engaged with customers. Collecting data and managing the flow of goods and services while concentrating on the customer journey will be a key differentiator for retailers in this new omni-channel world.

About The Author

Juan Hoyos is Chief Commercial Officer at Cinq North America.