As we all know, the point of purchase has always been defined as the location where a retail transaction takes place; the spot where money changes hands. In a bygone age where shopping was a physical experience, this explanation told us all we needed to know. We walked into a store during set hours, made a selection based on what was available at the time and then were directed to the cash desk to hand over our money.
Then along came the internet and changed the rules of the game. Suddenly the point of purchase could be anyone’s desktop, day or night, as we jumped on board a world of 24/7 shopping. Offline or online, the choice was ours.
Today we’re amidst yet another revolution, as smartphone and tablet adoption becomes almost ubiquitous. Thanks to mobile technology, points of purchase have been augmented to another level, virtually any time, anywhere, and usually without the need for any physical cash at all. A connected life means the possibilities are almost limitless for shoppers, as the device in the palm of their hand gives them access to a world of retail wherever and whenever they want it.
Smartphones have supercharged the rise of the savvy shopper, who is adopting a host of behaviours challenging the survival of traditional stores as we know them. From ‘showrooming’, where shoppers visit stores to check out products before ordering them on line, to shunning traditional retailers altogether and buying brands via one click @Amazon and others, the relationship between shopper and retailer is becoming ever more complex, and the once well trodden path to purchase now almost impossible to track.
As a traditional retailer, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s terrifying.
However, when application is driven by insight, smart technology can provide an opportunity to enhance the shopping experience. Our research at Savvy has highlighted a specific shopper need that forward-thinking retailers can help meet, providing inspiration. This presents a key opportunity; in one of our recent shopper panels we found an incredible 72% of shoppers want their supermarket to inspire them. More often than not in the traditional point of purchase arena, solutions are focused on providing functional information such as product and price details, rather than addressing shoppers’ emotional needs. However, some supermarket brands are embracing the opportunity to travel further with their customers and create truly inspirational content. Sainsburys transformed their Christmas edition of their magazine with the incorporation of Aurasma bringing the range to life.
Retailtech pioneers like Burberry and Apple also truly understand the need to inspire through technology. By arming sales teams with engaging digital content, delivered seamlessly through mobile tablets, these brands cater for shoppers’ hunger for information and ideas when it counts. The mobile device acts as a tool to not only inspire the shopper with further information and options, but thanks to technologies like Jack Dorsey’s Square, can also provide the means to convert them into a buyer there and then, just when their enthusiasm is at its highest.
The possibilities don’t stop there. Smartphones can be combined with digital point of sale to provide not only transactional assistance, but create personalised shopping experiences. Weave is one such example, where EE, Vodafone and O2 have joined forces to turn smartphones into virtual wallets that know who we are, where we are and what we buy, with the potential to provide very targeted offers and define a new, more mobile, path to purchase.
However, before we go too far we must ask how much of this new content and methodology will shoppers engage with? Being in tune with shoppers’ appetite for content, ideas and information is important, but choosing the right innovations for your retail brand is a lot harder than it looks. In reality, technology will always be moving much faster than shoppers’ adoption of new behaviours. A recent US survey by the Federal Reserve Board found shoppers remain sceptical of the safety of mobile payments and just 6% of smartphone owners used their devices to make purchases by mobile.
Successful brands will use a combination of smartphone integrated POS that will allow them to deepen their relationship with shoppers and ultimately develop consumer trust. Trust may seem warm and fuzzy, but in the commercial world it translates into hard results for businesses and brands. Purchase decisions are often not made rationally and behind every choice, there is a set of conscious and subconscious influences. If instead of merely considering the rational benefits smartphone integrated POS can offer shoppers, we think about the emotional needs and associations they have, we are far more likely to gain greater participation and by association, better return on their point of sale investment. By doing so we will we start to make really smart decisions.