In the digital age, many physical stores are missing out to the online world, in terms of browsing habits and net sales. There’s no doubt that this trend is set to continue into the 2020s, so the question for stores everywhere is a simple one: how can you stay relevant in the changing consumer marketplace? The answer, it seems, is providing the perfect and most ideal shopping experience for those consumers who tend to venture into stores to purchase goods. As such, this article looks at how the best stores are curated – providing inspiration to boost sales in physical stores across the world.
Mood and Atmosphere
When you walk into a store, what’s the main difference between your physical shopping and your online browsing? It’s the difference between the real world and the online world – because more of your senses are stimulated in the real world. Therefore, stores have a far wider field of perception to play with in order to convince you to buy their goods, and to make you feel blissful and at ease. When shopping in a store, you can:
- See the products arranged at a perfect height and slant for you to choose from them
- Hear music from store speakers, which relaxes and amuses
- Smell the store’s products – a strange thing to say and a sense you may not be aware of – but clothes stores smell of fresh fabric, and sports stores smell of tennis balls and new shoes
- Touch the products and try them out in order to check their quality and build – a really important aspect to offline shopping that digital shopping can’t give you
It’s in these areas that stores can create an atmosphere and help you use all your senses to make more informed decisions about the products that you’re looking to buy.
Customer Feedback
Owners of stores or chains of shops should be very careful about how they collect satisfaction data from their stores. It’s this data that’s driving the industry to create better customer experiences, and lead consumers to spend more time and cash in-store. A simple study recently found that customers greeted with a smile at the entrance of a store actually spend more: it may be common-sense, but it’s got a business incentive. Use the machines from happy-or-not.com, where customers can rate their experiences at certain points in your store, in order to collect excellent data on satisfaction from members of the shopping public.
Offering Something Unique
Every single consumer in the modern era is perfectly aware of the fact that they could be tucked up in bed with a bowl of food and a tablet on their lap, scrolling through the very same products that they’re now viewing in store. To make it worth their while shopping in your store, it’s worth thinking of ways to reward their adventurousness: might you offer free samples or small free products for those who spend over a certain amount of cash? Perhaps a special offer, or in-store coupons? Whatever you choose to do, make sure shopping in store is unique and exciting – something superior to online shopping.
So there you have it: the best ways to curate the perfect store in 2020 and boldly take you into the future of retail and commerce.