Many critics may say that physical retail is dead and buried. Yet that is not the case. Online retail has dealt a blow to once-packed shopping areas and malls, but physical retail has simply evolved. People now want more of an experience, a reason to enter a store other than to purchase necessary items. Building an app can help facilitate that and below, we give three ways in which an app can increase footfall.
By Creating Customer Loyalty
When you create an app, you have a direct route to the customer that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is fantastic for creating customer loyalty. All you need to do is keep them using the app, making them come back to it time and time again. This can be through offers, discounts, or new products.
Once you have loyalty, you can incentivize people to visit your physical locations. Perhaps some items may only be available in-store, or they may be discounted there. Customers with the app could get gifts and special privileges for example.
A case study of how effective this can be is not in retail but in the online bingo entertainment industry. The ability to play bingo online has revitalized once-empty halls. It has done this by offering bonuses and offers on its apps while providing a wide choice of convenient games. This has been paired with physical location offers and special events, allowing the online customer to make an easy transition to physical locations.
By Improving the Instore Experience
When it comes to shopping online, personalization is a given. Amazon will offer related products, other shops will also show you what other customers bought in conjunction with the item. But how can an app help translate that to your physical store?
There are plenty of ways this can be done, many of which are still being tested. Integrating self-shop services within an app can not be far away. Many supermarkets have already started to hand out self-scan-as-you-shop handsets. Other ideas could involve augmented reality, or even dropping push notifications and discounts tied to location data. All of this helps improve the customer journey and augments the in-store experience.
Through Data Collection
Finally, the most simple method is to use the app to ask customers what they want. An app allows you access to big data. Behind the scenes, it can track your users and their demographics. But even in the app itself, you can provide questionnaires and get vital information from customer service on what works and what doesn’t.
This allows you to pose the question to customers about what would make them visit a store or location. After this, it is simply a case of organizing this and seeing if it is financially viable.
Both of these approaches need integration and testing. Some of these may have huge success, while others may struggle. Take your time and see what customers want in store, then build the app from this. Soon, you should see footfall increase.
