As Media Post explains targeted messages in physical stores based on beacons and online data are becoming more prevalent and accurate. Consumers are a little creeped out at the prospect of retailers using technologies like facial recognition to identify them, but they don’t mind if retailers link a search on their phone to a coupon or discount.
Survey of US consumers finds ‘cool’ features blend digital and physical to provide shoppers with relevant product information and suggestions – on their own terms
Future Stores Conference, Seattle, WA — June 21, 2016 — It’s an omnichannel world for consumers and retailers, but not all capabilities are created equal. RichRelevance®, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, today released its second annual “Creepy or Cool” survey of US consumers. The 2016 study finds that while American consumers expect to use their mobile phones as part of the store experience, they are most open to mobile and digital innovations that allow them to choose when and how to engage. In contrast, technologies such as facial recognition that are used to track and target customers remain unpopular with consumers.
“For the second year in the row, the study finds that shoppers think it is cool to get digital help finding relevant products and information – on their own terms when they choose to engage,” said Diane Kegley, CMO of RichRelevance. “However, they are creeped out by digital capabilities that identify and track without a clear value offered in return.”
Creepy or Cool 2016: Key Findings
The new survey finds that the mobile phone ranks #1 for shopping. More than two-thirds (67%) of American consumers use their mobile phone to shop. Not surprisingly, mobile usage skews even higher for the coveted younger Millennial demographic (ages 18-29), with nearly 8 out of 10 (79%) shopping on their mobile phone.
Mobile shopping now extends into the physical store. Nearly 3 in 4 consumers (73%) use their mobile phone while they are shopping in the aisles, and 1 in 4 (23%) use it frequently while shopping. Here again, Millennials are more likely to turn to their mobile phones. More than 8 out of 10 (84%) use their mobile phone in the store, and 1 in 3 (35%) use it frequently.
As retailers rush to deliver a store experience that merges digital technologies, mobile phone and the physical aisle, they must walk a fine line between an elevated – or an eerie – experience. There is no one-size-fits all approach, and consumer comfort levels vary depending on where and how technology is deployed. Age is also a major factor, with Millennials expressing stronger opinions on both creepy and cool features. Comparative survey data includes:
Coolest
You can scan a product on your mobile device to see product reviews and recommendations for other items you might like.
Overall: 79% cool; Millennials: 84% cool
Soon after you leave the store, you receive a digital coupon for a product you looked at but didn’t purchase.
Overall: 52% cool; Millennials: 60% cool
When you check out, your print or email receipt includes product recommendations selected just for you.
Overall: 50% cool; Millennials: 59% cool
Cool
Your location in the store triggers personalized product information, relevant content, recommendations and discounts to pop up on your mobile device as you walk the aisles.
Overall: 40% cool; Millennials: 49% cool
Digital screens in each dressing room show products that complement the item that you are trying on.
Overall: 41% cool; Millennials: 49% cool
A salesperson makes more helpful suggestions because they can see what you’ve previously browsed and bought on their site and in the store.
Overall: 32% cool; Millennials: 45% cool
Creepy
Facial recognition technology identifies you as a high value shopper and relays this information to a salesperson.
Overall: 67% creepy; Millennials: 71% creepy
A salesperson greets you by name on the store floor because your mobile phone or app signals your presence.
Overall: 64% creepy; Millennials: 64% creepy
The survey of 1,018 US consumers was conducted by RichRelevance in May 2016.
BizReport: A new study by RichRelevance finds the ‘cool’ factor for most shoppers is a blend of both digital and physical stores. The key is not to take the cool factor too far.
Personalization is certainly a trend that isn’t going anywhere any time soon. Website Magazine review a new study by RichRelevance and find there is a fine line between personalization that consumers consider “cool” and personalization that consumers consider “creepy.”
Leading Consumer Electronics Retailer Puts Their Customers First with RichRelevance Omnichannel Personalization
London, UK, 14th June 2016 – RichRelevance®, the global leader in omnichannel personalization, today announced that United Electronics Company, eXtra, is using the Relevance Cloud™ personalization platform to develop their omnichannel strategy and drive customer-centric experiences across all sales channels.
eXtra is the leading consumer electronics retailer in the GCC, it has over 41 stores in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman and was the first Saudi Arabian retailer to go online with a transactional web site in 2011. As part of its omnichannel strategy eXtra selected RichRelevance to provide real time omnichannel based recommendations into its web site, this move was driven by eXtra’s company philosophy to put their customers first. By implementing RichRelevance, eXtra can now create seamless experiences across all sales channels whether on a desktop website, mobile, email or in-store.
“We chose RichRelevance due to the rich feature set, ease of use and scalability of the solution. Another benefit was the fast implementation and expertise of the RichRelevance consultants.” Explained Mohammed Sajjad, Director of eCommerce at eXtra. “We were most excited about the ability to connect all our sales channels and create frictionless experiences for our customers.”
Sajjad continued; “We are thrilled that our customers will now benefit from personally crafted recommendations enabling fast product discovery and more enjoyable shopping experiences. We can’t wait to see the results.”
eXtra is using RichRelevance personalized recommendations on their website, mobile and email initiatives. In addition, eXtra is utilizing their offline data captured at the point of sale within their stores to further enhance the ability to personalize online recommendations.
“We are delighted eXtra has chosen RichRelevance as their omnichannel personalization partner. eXtra’s commitment to their customers is impressive and we look forward to further enhancing their customers’ experience and in seeing great success from the partnership.” Commented Matthieu Chouard, Vice President and General Manager EMEA, RichRelevance
eXtra was established in 2003 in Saudi Arabia to provide customers with a full shopping experience for all aspects of consumer electronics and appliances. eXtra now has over 12 million customers with 41 branches in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. eXtra was recognised in 2004 as being in the top 100 brands in Saudi Arabia.
You spend a lot of time optimizing your website to streamline the shopper’s path through the retail funnel—making sure they see value at each point along the way. Once you navigate the shopper to the right product, it’s important that you take the necessary steps to seal the deal, and get the shopper across the finish line.
The cart page is a pivotal area for securing that conversion. When done well, you’ll get the sale, and then potentially entice the shopper to buy more items. When done poorly, you’ll disrupt conversion by distracting the shopper from the transaction you’ve fought so hard to get.
And so we ask: How smart is your cart?
At RichRelevance, we’re sensitive to the cart page experience, and work closely with our retail partners to implement solutions deep in the funnel that will grow cart values without compromising conversion. Here are three things you can do with product recommendations to substantially enhance your cart page experience:
1. Get out of the way
Securing conversion is our primary objective on the cart page. If we can get the shopper to buy more stuff and grow the order value, that’s phenomenal! But, it shouldn’t compromise completing the sale. The location of recommendations must reflect this prioritization and not interfere with the shopper consuming information critical to the buying decision.
As such, recommendations must be on the periphery of core content such as the cart summary, checkout call-to-action, promotional code inputs, and other key messaging and functionality. This usually means slotting a vertical placement in the right margin or a horizontal placement underneath the main content area. Otherwise, if more prominently placed, you’re baiting customers to continue shopping, which can be extremely disruptive to conversion.
2. Recommend complementary, non-competitive products
When you finally get the shopper to the cart page, it’s critical not to challenge their decision to buy. If they add a TV to their shopping bag, they’ve demonstrated a degree of commitment that we shouldn’t impede by recommending another TV upon landing on the cart page. Instead of being helpful, that would be frustrating to the shopper, and elicitreconsideration at a point when a shopper should be firm about their core purchase
On the cart page, it’s imperative to use cross-sell recommendations that display products most often purchased with the seed item. However, since these kinds of recommendations rely on purchase behavior at the individual product level, something that happens much less frequently than browse activity, , it can be challenging for behavioral recommendations systems to always deliver intuitive cross-sell recommendations across a retailer’s entire catalog.
As an example, if a specific TV model has only been purchased 50 times in recent history, that’s probably not enough transactions to reliably identify four or five logical products that are commonly purchased with it. You can overcome this dilemma, in 2 ways:
I. Incorporate point-of-sale (POS) data in recommendations. If you have a brick-and-mortar presence, you probably have more offline POS transactions than online sales. Incorporating those in your online recommendations will provide a wealth of data from which to identify logical product associations.
II. Employ rule-based recommendations. Create a set of advanced merchandising rules that governs what is recommended in cross-sell situations. For each category of products, define what categories you want represented in each recommendation slot—and then let the engine source products based on whatever brand, attribute or compatibility-matching requirements you might have configured.
Ok, so now you have well-placement recommendations and you’ve optimized your cross-sell assortment across your entire catalog. What’s left?
3. Optimize your recommendations layout
Once you’ve gotten the shopper to the cart page, create inertia that pushes them through the checkout process rather than casting them out to higher parts of the funnel. You can do this by presenting a recommendation layout that facilitates exploring a product and adding it to cart without leaving the current page. Implement ‘quick view’ functionality on recommendations that allows a shopper to access product information, configuration options (e.g., size/color), and add-to-cart capabilities with a single click. Without this functionality, you’re forcing shoppers to leave the cart page to explore recommended products, and they may never come back.
Your cart page is sacred as it’s the gateway to more cash in your coffers. It’s imperative that the page experience drive shoppers to transact rather than pull them into a dangerous loop of product reconsideration. These are merely a small sample of tactics RichRelevance has deployed and validated using rigorous A/B and multivariate testing. We strongly encourage you to consider these optimizations for your retail site. They’ll make your cart smarter, protect your conversions, and grow your order values.