Retail Marketers Need to Think Inside, Outside and All Around the Box
The appeal of buying with a click is obvious. And the power of mobile applications to accelerate gratification is pretty easy to see as well. But there’s much more to it if you expand your vision.
Even Amazon, the Grinch who stole Christmas from millions of retailers, and the standard for easy shopping and fast delivery, is now looking to take instant gratification to a whole new level with a concept for local sky-based warehouses (blimps) supplying drones that deliver customer orders in minutes. Seriously.
Stop and Shop now offers price scanners (and a scanner app for your phone) that let you know and manage costs before you get to the register. And rather than wait in those long lines, you can go through instant checkout where you can scan, bag it and be on your way.
Check out the checkout line at Marshalls, one of the few brick and mortar retailers who thrived this winter. You have to parade past a long gauntlet of carefully selected impulse temptations. “I could use one of these.” It’s right there! Just grab it. You’re credit card is already out.
New mobile technologies will be cutting the time to in-store gratification. Retailers can identify the customer (with a phone) the minute they walk into the store then use customer and location data to present contextually relevant in-store offers and information. “X is on sale today!” “We’ve got the new Y’s over here!” “Enter to win a free Gift Card, instantly!”
Where retail success used to rest heavily on location convenience, these days, your store experience can be in the hands of your customers any time, on mobile devices with apps that can streamline customer gratification in hundreds of ways.
A Case in Point
One of our clients is Empire Loan, a modern, ethical and very successful pawn shop enterprise. They make money by collateral lending or by buying and selling valuable merchandise. It’s one of the oldest professions in the world, but when Mittcom created a phone application for them, it all changed. The Empire Loan “Cash Cam” app allows customers and prospects to take a photo of an item and within hours Empire will give them an estimate of the cash value (and value as loan collateral).
What used to require a trip to the pawn shop can now be done in minutes in the privacy of their home. Now, even people who’ve never been to a pawn shop are accessing Empire to get cash for their valuables fast, without having to do the Craigslist or eBay hassle.
Think Faster
Mittcom has been helping retail businesses, small and large succeed through good times and bad by reading the tea leaves, and integrating diverse marketing campaigns. Today, the quest for instant gratification should be a priority for any retailer.
Because the consumers are losing patience.