How to Reach Your Customers Where They Are
In the modern retail world, customers want to purchase products through a variety of channels, and there may not even be any channel loyalty. The same customer could buy online today, walk into your retail outlet tomorrow, and then the next day go mobile after responding to your e-mail special mail-out. But as a retail store, you’ve got to be flexible enough to meet all of your customers where they want to be met and to offer the product they want in each of those channels. Here’s how to do that most efficiently.
- First, take inventory. What products are you selling and do they appeal to the customers you have? Is there anything missing from your inventory that your customers want? Have you asked them?
- Look at your analytics. What are your customers purchasing, and where? If you see that a line of ladies clothes are selling like hotcakes in your retail store but not on your website while childrens toys are going bonkers on your site but not in the store, then you’ve got to figure out why your products aren’t selling in those weaker channels. Maybe it’s because you have different clientele for each channel, or it could be that you aren’t marketing your products to the right people in each channel.
- What are your technological deficiencies? Do you have a fully integrated end-to-end retail management solution, or maybe your software at this time has been relegated to nothing more than a point-of-sale system. Figure out what you’re missing.
- Finally, fill the gaps in your software needs to provide a fully integrated end-to-end retail management solution so that you can meet all of your customers’ needs in the channels where they are buying from you. You should never find yourself in a position where you are cutting off customers from some of your channels because you do not have the right product or the right amount of product.
A good retail management solution addresses the problem of customer satisfaction in an integrated way, not in a linear/vertical way.