3 proven retail digital transformation strategies

Endless disruption is the new reality for retail businesses. The age of digital transformation and continuously evolving customer expectations are driving the change.  Organizations that recognize what is required to digitally transform, while understanding their customer needs, are far ahead of those that don’t. According to IDC, digital retail companies are showing consistent growth at a much higher pace and fare much better in scaling of revenue as compared to their non-digital peers:

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Retailers should consider these 3 digital strategies to keep up with digital transformation and customer expectations:

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1. Customer Experience:

Business problems to be solved?

Customers want to have a unique and personalized experience and will seek out companies that can provide this to them. Businesses need to understand their customers’ needs.

Example: Customers are happy to give Sephora their information because they will have a better in and out of store experience as the company tailors it to their preferences.

Stat: 34% of consumers prefer to shop with retailers who use personal information to improve the shopping experience (Forrester, 2018).

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2. Omnichannel:

Business problems to be solved?

The customer now expects to have options when going to make a purchase. If a retailer doesn’t have options outside of their brick and mortar store, they will be losing out on a lot of potential customers.

‍Example: David’s Tea offers customers who make a purchase online with instore discounts to drive traffic to retail outlets.

Stat: 43% of Home Depot orders are buy online and pick up in store (BOPIS) (Forrester, 2018).

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3. Customer Intelligence:

Business problems to be solved?

Businesses need to understand the details of customer activities to build a deeper and more effective customer relationship and improve decision making.

‍Example: Fabletics tracks the SKU’s entering the dressing room but are not purchased. They have sales associates engage with the customers that are trying it on to get feedback. They then make changes to the product until customers start buying.

Stat: Lululemon is at 98% store inventory efficiency because of advanced RFID tagging and tracking system (IDC, 2019).

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Want to know more about these strategies? Stay tuned for my next blog that will take a closer look at the Customer Experience Retail Strategy.