Retailers Fight To Retain Loyalty As Shoppers Take Control

By Jackie Palmer, Infor CRM Epiphany

This past holiday shopping season, many retailers found that customers browsed their merchandise in-store and, when they saw something enticing, would use their cell phones to comparison shop. New phone apps that many manufacturers and merchants themselves offer let users see if they can buy that item cheaper somewhere else.

How can traditional brick-and-mortar retailers respond to this new shopping strategy? Successful retailers will go on the offensive. This isn't the time to be timid. Consider how consumer packaged-goods retailers have advanced since Amazon began offering "groceries" in 2006. They fought back by, among other things, building websites that attract shoppers by posting their weekly ad circulars online and highlighting other specials. Catapult Marketing reports in its second annual Digital Shopper Marketing Study that half of packagedgoods shoppers visit a retailer's website a day or two before visiting the store.