The power of the in-store shopping experience

Today, companies no longer have as much control over the buying process as they used to. Consumers have tons of information and too many services and products to choose from.

This high level of competition and comparability does not only impact the online or offline world exclusively, but as multi-channel shopping processes are involved, both worlds have their part to play. Therefore, offering added value and accompanying customers in their shopping experience in a precise way is a key differentiating factor against competitors.

This leads us to ask ourselves the following questions: How can we know what our customers are looking for? How can we make them prefer us over our competitors?
Find out below why a good shopping experience is important in your physical shop, and what to do (and what to avoid) to take it to the next level.

Why invest in improving the shopping experience?

According to several reports published by Gartner in recent years, offering a quality shopping experience has a positive impact on conversion, and therefore on your business' revenue. In fact, the shopping experience is more relevant than the prices of products and services, and more relevant than the products or services themselves. What's more, according to data collected by one such survey, customers who felt that the information they received during the process of making a purchase was adequate were 3 times more likely to complete the purchase.

There is no doubt, the higher the degree of customer satisfaction, the greater the benefits for your business:

• Increased sales
• Increased average ticket
• Recommendation and better ratings
• Loyalty and repeat business
• Increased staff commitment
  

Analyse to improve and avoid mistakes

Evaluating our current shopping process is a good first step to improve the experience we offer in our shop. A thorough analysis allows us to visualise areas for improvement and to solve some common problems.

To achieve this, among other things, it is advisable to align our service or product with what customers are looking for, make it easy for them to reach us and make interactions in our shop efficient. At the same time, we empower them to make a confident and informed decision to buy. In other words, we must understand the differences between the experience they are having in our shop and the experience they actually expect and want to have. To do this, we suggest avoiding these mistakes:

• Not innovating
• Using obsolete technology
• Not segmenting the audience
• Recommending irrelevant content
• Not taking advantage of the data collected
  

The importance of knowing your customer

There are different factors that impact on the success, or otherwise, of the shopping experience. However, none is as important, nor carries as much weight, as considering the needs and wants of customer groups in the buying process.

Understand what the different segments among your consumers are looking for and why they are looking for it. Discovering what their insecurities are, what they need more information or detail about and what type of purchase they want to make will help you offer an innovative solution along with a quality shopping experience.

Other factors that impact on the plan for a successful buying process for businesses include:

• The quality of the content we deliver
• The intentionality of the interactions to which we expose each audience.
• The alternatives and options we offer them
  

It should be noted that when we talk about the quality of the content, we are not only referring to the messages created by the internal team, although these will undoubtedly have a high impact. We can also, for example, consider providing access to real reviews from other customers. The greater the variety of information, the more truthful and trustworthy it will be.

It is important to always bear in mind that the shopping experience is not only about the seller, and that most shop visitors already arrive with a backpack of information and options in mind. It is imperative, therefore, to build long-lasting relationships with them, advise them in the best way when they make the visit, and never forget after-sales service. Since you want them to come back, right? You have to position your brand in their mind.

How do you make an unforgettable first impression?

The possibility of personalising the shopping experience for different audiences and needs is not exclusive to the virtual world. Solutions like the ones we offer at Ladorian make us the strategic partners of physical stores, as we offer applicable and specific technological services to increase the benefits of offline spaces .

With our artificial intelligence we allow you to take advantage of your business data. We help you evaluate the different audiences your shop has, and help you gain a complete perspective on who your customers are. By tailoring strategies to each segment and communicating the right messages at the right time, we help you increase sales by at least 30%.

Our software also makes it easy for you to track results and optimise campaigns in real time, with an emphasis on improving shopping experiences. By assessing, for example, at what point in the process your customers are having difficulties, or at what stage they are at. Contact our sales team for more information about the different plans, tools and services we have at Ladorian. We have what you need.