The state of retail has been all over the place in the past years and for good reason. Emerging technologies have changed commerce forever, so brick-and-mortar retail stores have had no choice but to adapt.
Below we provide 4 big trends we’re seeing in-store and 4 on the marketing side. Put these together and watch your foot traffic take off like a rocket!
Experience-Based Shopping
In some ways, this trend isn’t new or exclusive to 2021, but it’s so important that retail is always trying to redefine “experience-based shopping” that it becomes something of a new topic every year.
Here’s the thing, your competitors (other retailers) sell products just like you do. They may be of a different quality, pricepoint, whatever… the point is that consumers know they have options. Hell, they can order something on Amazon with 2 clicks and have it delivered to their home in a matter of days or hours.
While consumers can purchase whatever they like, they can’t purchase experiences and that’s what puts them in demand. You don’t get an experience with Amazon and maybe not with your competitors. So retailers are gathering data and using them to transform their brick-and-mortar stores into experience centers for more customer engagement and sales.
More Flexible Payment Methods
It’s 2021, which means there are a bunch of ways to pay people. Is there anything worse than getting a customer, but not accepting their preferred payment type? You’re putting yourself at risk of losing sales! So retailers are focusing on accepting all forms of currency to maximize sales. Beyond the traditional cash/credit/debit, retailers are experimenting with:
- Prepaid Cards
- Gift Cards
- Mobile Pay
- Scan-And-Go
- App-Based Commerce
Lower Pricing = Being More Competitive
With all things considered, money talks. While it may be difficult to match prices from larger retailers, the small and medium-size guys are finding ways! Even if it means lowering profit margins, retailers are prioritizing customer experience with the intention that more sales will make up for the decrease in profit margins and regain a foothold in their respective markets.
Going Community + Environmentally Friendly
This is another thing any local retailer can provide that the big guys can’t. Community. Doing some work with community relations adds a sense of inclusion that resembles that of a neighbor. Present your retail brand as if it was a person in the community.
Also, going green with solar power and reusable bags are great ways to save money and give people environmentally-friendly ways to shop.
Using Snapchat for Product Highlights
Snapchat is seen as the future for social media marketing because more than half of users are under 34 years old. Targeting young shoppers with engaging posts and ads are great ways to bring in foot traffic, which later utilizes the experience-based marketing that we talked about earlier. See how these things come together?
Managing Killer Newsletters
Loyalty programs are great for not only getting repeat customers but for increasing average order value. Ask for customer email addresses at checkout in exchange for special promotions, then use affordable email marketing software to get started!
Utilizing Google My Business For Reviews
Do you know what people do when they want to buy a product? They check for reviews. Product reviews, experience reviews, comparison shopping, you name it’s there, but we find the most important source to be Google Reviews. Why? Because they’re the reviews that show up when you search for a brand. As a result, retailers are offering incentives to gain positive reviews to get more store traffic.
Getting Exposure With Instagram Stories
Similar to Snapchat. Instagram is a great way to reach younger demographics. Only Instagram has a larger number and a wider range of users. And you know which format tends to get the most reach? Stories. So they’re using stories to market their products and shopping experience and putting an allocated ad spend behind it with geotargeting.
