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Retail Growth
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Retail Growth
not rocket science
With retail growth dropping by 1.5%1 the past month, and 3.1%2 annually, the commerce landscape is looking bleak. Given the slow overall economic growth, it comes as no surprise that people are less inclined to indulge on things they do not consider necessary. Now more than ever, retail and F&B sectors are driven to innovate and distinguish themselves from the competition to draw more customers.
However, a few minor adjustments are not enough in a climate upset by disruption. Research shows that discounts are becoming less effective among the local millennial consumer base3. At the recent SMEICC 2016 event, StarHub showcased how SME retailers can make use of Smart Retailers to deploy a five-pronged approach to recalibrate your retail planning and operations to rake in the right traffic.
Social media and ads might do the bulk of the work to drive footfall to your store, but you can increase in-store traffic even more by engaging passers-by. One effective way to do this is to deploy digital signage close to or within your stores.
Not only is digital signage an effective way to gain people’s attention, it lets you customise and control the content posted in real time, due to its cloud-based content management system. This makes it a more cost-effective and time efficient way to update your audience on your latest promotions or products, than flyers and brochures.
Apart from attracting new customers, it is important to maintain a relationship with your current consumer base to boost customer retention. One effective way to do this is through video and Wi-Fi analytics.
Recall the free public Wi-Fi you tapped into at some locations. Some log-ins require your personal information, such as your name and email address. This information helps the Wi-Fi provider aggregate customer information into a comprehensive database. Improved knowledge of their consumer base enables retailers to better cater to them.
Your business can tap on this channel, along with CRM platforms, to alert customers of various promotions available, such as a first-time customer promotion, or a 1-day only sale. Engaging and rewarding customers can help foster brand loyalty.
Video analytics complements the in-store customer information by analysing other aspects not accessible through a Wi-Fi login profile. Advanced sensor technology allows you to generate high density heat maps, pinpointing the places in your store that people frequent, and the sections that they are less likely to visit.
Camera sensors can also use facial recognition technology to capture customer demographics, especially useful to gauge the identity of consumers who do not log into your Wi-Fi network.
Your advertising and promotion is at its best when it’s targeting the right audience. Demographic data aggregated from Wi-Fi and behavioural data gained from video analytics can be combined with other forms of data analytics to gain comprehensive and complete customer insights. With such in-depth insight, business owners can improve operational process in-store to offer a differentiated and optimised customer experience.
Once you get actionable intelligence from data analytics, use it to plan campaigns and advertising better targeted to your market. Location-based analytics even lets you select the most effective platform or physical location for your advertisements based on footfall trends. Your business can tap into this comprehensive information to identify new marketing and campaign opportunities.
Manage the influx of customers brought by the attracting and planning stages with top-class profit intelligence tools. Your business can achieve better workforce efficiencies with next-generation Point-of-Sale (POS) solutions, which can handle everything from inventory management, to workforce scheduling and even reduce food preparation turnaround time to customers which is critical in F&B businesses.
Keen on experiencing how the 5-pronged approach can help your retail space? Now your business can stay atop of competition with just one simple solution. The StarHub’s Smart Retail Solution offers data analytics, digital signage, video and WiFi analytics and profit intelligence POS solutions as one complete offering.
The StarHub’s Smart Retail Solutions met with overwhelming, positive response from SMEs at the Annual SMEICC 2016 organized by SCCCI (Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce & Industry). The event was an excellent opportunity for StarHub to share smart retail solutions for a profitable and efficient operations and marketing infrastructure. With these solutions, StarHub aims to address several issues retail business experience, insufficient customer information, manpower shortage, and lower levels of operational efficiency.
To find out more about StarHub’s Smart Retail Solutions, call 1800 888 8888, or email business@starhub.com.
