Leveraging digital merchandising to elevate grocery retail

Merchandising is a core skill for both online and offline retailers. Merchandising is the skillful presentation of products in order to promote sales.  In the case of brick and mortar, merchandising mainly revolves around store displays in combination with assortment planning, packaging, pricing and offers, all done to entice customers into making purchases. 

But what is it about digital merchandising that grocers can leverage to impact sales? 

To begin with, utilizing tools such as cross-sell, they can easily set up basic online catalogs. Early themes and new virtual categories are then added to help as a guide for customers to navigate through large selections to find what they want.

What makes digital merchandising stand apart is its ability to generate data that gives a true insight into the customers’ shopping behaviors. It further enables retailers to track what their customers want and how they want it, scaling merchandising as a concept to new heights.

Why is Digital Merchandising Important for you?

Digital merchandising essentially mimics the in-store merchandising environment, only using a different set of tools to promote the sale of their products. Here, customers can understand more about the product without being constrained to its physical limitations. Digital merchandising allows grocers to impart more knowledge about the product via storytelling and more information about its usage. For grocery retail, digital merchandising can display several pieces of information including meal planning, complimentary food products, etc.

Here are some areas that digital merchandising differs from a brick and mortar setting:

• Flexibility: Online content including digital imagery can be personalized at any time, unlike in-store displays which depend on store labor to manage.

• Accessibility: Customers can access online content from anywhere such as from mobile phones or computers, and at any time. They are not restricted to the store timings and can do shopping right from their fingertips.

• No Shrinkage: In the case of digital merchandising, replacing physical products with digital imagery eliminates the shrinkage that occurs with merchandising perishable products in the store. This way, grocery retailers can show the products the way it is meant to look like and are not restricted by the packaging of the products

How can Grocery retailers benefit from digital merchandising?

Digital merchandising is an essential part of a grocery retailer’s toolset.

Currently, grocery retailer websites showcase products by displaying rows after rows of individual images of products taken against a white or light background following up with a flashy introduction page. The challenge does not end here, grocery retailers must move beyond creating a product catalog.

For example, leveraging digital merchandising, grocers can efficiently market perishable products.

Real-time recommendations can encourage customers to buy items that have shorter shelf lives, thus enabling them to improve margins on perishables. Furthermore, they can elaborate on the products by educating the customer about where it comes from, who grows it, and how it can fit into a meal plan. The information does not end there, customers can even learn about health benefits and food preparation via video.

Connecting digital merchandising with your customers’ needs

Digital merchandising can help create environments to suit customer needs and interests. The advantage is the ability to understand customer behavior and even predict it to a certain extent. When the holiday season is in full swing, many grocery retailers out there would immediately pivot their marketing efforts toward ovens and bakeware.

If a customer has never bought or consumed a turkey, then the holiday theme can be centered around another protein. Also, selling salads next to raw meats in a store may be a problem, but online, they can be easily combined to create a meal plan or even a recipe!

Visually appealing product imagery already sets your product apart from that of your competitors’. That being said, the imagery alone cannot grab your customers’ attention. It needs to be followed up with a story that educates them about the farm that the produce is sourced from, the nutritional value of the meal and even recipes it can be used in or the story of the chef who came up with it. Social media can play a massive part here to help spread the word about the product as well as their journey in your online store. All of this information is to be organized in such a way that your customers can access it from one page. Finally, the online aspect ties to offline to the actual products that are delivered, making this a cohesive experience for your customer.

Conclusion

Content is clearly the king when you want to tell a story and connect with your customers. Digital merchandising takes into account how and why a customer will choose or like a particular product. Personalization is also another great opportunity presented by merchandising. Remember who forms your target audience while leveraging advertising. Grocery retail is all about selling ordinary products in the freshest and best way possible and we are here to help you elevate that by leveraging Digital merchandising.

Would you like to know more about us and how our category and catalog management solutions can your business? Click here to know more. 

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Frictionless Shopping: Futuristic Retail

Customers today want the gap between online browsing and in-store purchasing to bridged in a seamless experience. Potential inhibitors of the customer shopping journey include inconveniences such as having their preferred choice unavailable in-store or losing items in an online basket. It is a disappointing experience when customers face inconvenience whether real or perceived when shopping in-store or online.  It is critical for brick and mortars to make necessary adjustments to stay ahead in the competitive arena of retail. A frictionless shopping experience is one that seamlessly incorporates checkout and payment options, real-time customer service and, customer delivery preferences. This is quickly turning out to be a fundamental aspect of any retailer’s business. Offering frictionless shopping is a great way to connect with new customers.

What Defines Frictionless Shopping?

Frictionless shopping is the idea to connect customers and retailers so that customers instantly find the products they need and then buy it without any interruptions. Frictionless shopping ensures that the customers are in control. The concept has evolved with technology and now customers expect these experiences to be made available through their smartphones. Frictionless shopping also requires the elimination of retail interactions that negatively impact customer experience, such as, having to wait for paper receipts to print or fetching loyalty cards to get a discount.

The implications for you include the way you package and market goods, down to the ease with which your customers can complete the payment and checkout process. You must incorporate customer-friendly ordering options, as well as click and collect services. If you have a brick and mortar store, you must find a way to enable mobile payment options and optimize inventory systems to attract customers into the store.

Why is Frictionless Shopping Important?

In the digital age, customers are spoiled for choice and habituated to getting what they want delivered instantly. Customers prefer not to have to stand in long queues at checkout counters or wait long for their online orders to be delivered. Information is also always at their fingertips and they can easily find what they need/want with one quick search on their smartphones. 

A good example of a great frictionless shopping experience is Amazon Go. The cashierless stores are at 4 locations in the US. Amazon Go uses hundred of cameras and lots of data to allow customers to simply walk in, pick up whatever they need and walk out without any checkout queues. Amazon Go has a smartphone app that automatically adds items to a virtual shopping basket while customers select them. The customers are charged to their Amazon account for the products they walk out with as they leave the store.

Impact of Frictionless Shopping on Retailers

If you want to stay ahead of the game, then you must embrace technology and data to provide a frictionless shopping experience from start to finish. From product innovation to improving customer experiences in-store, data and technology play a big role in helping you understand how customers respond to display and packaging. It is important to reorder inventory based on demand, keep shelves stocked and ensure efficient distribution.

For example, push notifications sent on smartphones to customers while they are shopping could alert them to offers and provide helpful information to smooth their shopping journey. An essential element in frictionless shopping is an easy mobile checkout process. Mobile friendly, simple forms and single payment option will get more customers. It is also crucial to allow customers to easily and quickly find help through FAQs, direct calling or live chat.

We have seen some tips for implementing the concept of frictionless shopping whether offline or online in your business.  In this busy world, customers are drawn to retailers who understand the value of their time. Stay ahead in the competition by giving your customers a smooth and frictionless shopping experience.

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The Path to Upgrading Your Brick and Mortar Business 

Brick and mortar retail is often overlooked in the age of digital transformation. Many believed that the digital age would spell doom for physical stores. The “retail apocalypse” predicted the end of the brick and mortar retail model. However, this is not turning out to be the case, and a vast majority of shoppers still want to engage with retailers in a brick and mortar setting. A physical store gives customers the opportunity to get a feel for the products they are buying. It also presents retailers with a chance to provide customers with an unforgettable experience. Customers today want personalized shopping experiences.

Having a brick and mortar presence is also a good way to attract new customers. This is illustrated by the wave of innovative and trendy new retailers like Bonobos and Everlane who started off as online retailers but are looking to expand to physical stores across the country.

Omnichannel Experience

It is a mistake to believe that retailers are either only online or offline. Successful retailers today are operating across multiple different channels. The ability to deliver a highly engaging experience across all channels is the holy grail for retail success in the digital era. Brick and mortar form the cornerstone of this sophisticated omnichannel model of retail. However, physical stores must be able to provide customers with a multidimensional experience that touches all of their senses and enables them to connect with brands.

This retail experience begins the moment a customer enters the store for the first time. Customers intuitively react to the lighting, cleanliness, organization and flow of the store. Getting the physical design of the store right is crucial. So is the way products are arranged and displayed. Retailers today are also experimenting with technologies such as Augmented Reality(AR) and Virtual Reality(VR) to provide unforgettable in-store experiences to their customers.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Machine Learning(ML) may sound like futuristic technologies, however, the reality is that these technologies are being widely applied in retail too. For example, AI and ML are already helping retailers make smarter choices when it comes to preventative maintenance. AI systems are used for product tagging and management, enabling retailers and employees to keep track of important products through a network of sensors. These technologies have changed the way retailers operate their business by enabling them to be able to understand what’s going on at all of their stores from an operations perspective.

There is no doubt that the brick and mortar retail model is here to stay. However, things are changing and the status quo is being disrupted. But this is only for the better. The importance of technology remains crucial for the success of any brick and mortar store. That is why you must understand and fully embrace the new technologies that can bring your business to a brighter future.

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Approaching Stock-Out: 5 ways to Prevent the Out-of-Stock Problem and Boost Sales 

Managing inventory and predicting sales is a difficult process for every retailer. Customers hate it when an item isn't in stock and they are quick to take their business to another retailer who has the item in stock. A stock-out or an out-of-stock situation can have devastating effects for a retailer. A stock-out can be defined as a situation in which the demand or requirement for an item cannot be fulfilled from the current inventory. They are also known as oversells and out-of-stocks. A stock-out leads to a loss of sale due to not having a product any longer. Too many out-of-stocks can ruin brand trust, decrease customer loyalty and result in increased customer care costs. Therefore, preventing stock-outs ought to be at the top of your list of priorities.

Understanding the causes of stock-outs will put you on the right path, but you’ll need actionable solutions if you want to keep your warehouse well-stocked.

Here are 5 solutions to help decrease and prevent stock-outs:

Forecast Demand

Stock-outs are caused by inaccurate demand forecasting. AI and machine learning enabled demand forecasting is one of the most promising applications of AI for the supply chain. Apart from AI based inventory management, here is what you can do:

1. Determine what to measure and how often, for example, the frequency of stock-outs, competitors sales data, POS data, etc.
2. Integrate data from all of your sales channels, especially if you’re running an omnichannel e-commerce strategy.
3. Create a regular monthly process that analyzes previous forecasts and compares them to actual market results.

Refer a Reliable Order Point Formula

A reorder point for​​​​mula can tell you approximately when you should reorder stock to minimize stock-outs and maximize inventory turns. Ideally, this occurs when you’ve reached the lowest amount of inventory that you can sustain before you need to order more stock. Instead of falling victim to erratic spikes and slumps in the market, you can plan ahead by using a proven, mathematical equation that helps you consistently order the right amount of stock each month.

For example, you could use the following formula to help you beat stock-outs:

(Average Daily Unit Sales x Average Lead Time in Days) + Safety Stock = Reorder Point

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Implement RFID Tags

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags can allow you to track every product you store quite easily.

It can make your inventory more efficient and allow for faster stocktaking processes. You can swiftly search for and find the products you need to ship. RFID tags can also allow you to scan any product and, find out in real-time how many of those products you still have in stock.

Researchers at the University of Arkansas found that RFID technology can reduce stock-outs by 16%. If you experience regular stock-outs too, then implementing RFID tags can be beneficial for your business.

Maintain Safety Stock Inventory

Safety stock inventory is a small, surplus amount of inventory you maintain on hand, to guard against lead times and variability in market demand.

It can help you to add a buffer for longer-than-expected order lead times, compensate for inaccurate market forecasts, protect against unexpected spikes in demand, and ultimately prevent stock-outs.

Here’s a formula to help you calculate safety stock:

(Max Daily Sales x Max Lead Time in Days) – (Average Daily Sales x Average Lead Time in Days) = Safety Stock Inventory

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Prepare a Hierarchy of Recommended Substitutes

For some classes of e-commerce, customers will accept an alternative or equivalent product when one item is out of stock. In grocery, this can be in the form of suggesting an alternate brand of the product, or an alternate form of the product. For example, suggesting a frozen or canned form when the fresh item is out of stock. This enables a customer to prepare a planned meal without wasting time going to another store or having multiple delivery charges. Likewise, in fashion, a popular or necessary item might be back ordered or sold out, and a competing brand or color might be able for immediate shipment. For example, if it’s the rainy season and the customer needs a new pair of rain boots, they may be satisfied with a different design that is available for immediate shipment. In this situation, a machine learning based recommendation engine can be leveraged to help determine the correct recommendation from the real-time inventory of available options.

Preventing stock-outs won’t be an easy task and neither will it happen overnight. But keeping these pointers in mind and implementing them as part of your inventory management will go a long way in safeguarding against stock-outs. You could always continue to test solutions while paying attention to the market. To do so, we recommend using an AI-based tool that can collect, measure, analyze, discover patterns in and provide accurate forecasts.

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Impact of Great Product Content in Fashion Retail

 When it comes to e-commerce, merely displaying a robust collection of products on your website will no longer do. Customers today want to do their due diligence before committing to any purchases. This initial evaluation of product content is considered one of the most essential parts of a customer shopping journey. It is also a crucial prerequisite for you to make sure of sales. Incomplete, missing, error-riddled and misspelled product information causes customers to lose faith in your e-commerce website.

In a physical store, consumers are used to touching, feeling and trying on clothing before buying. However, in the case of online shopping, you need to provide rich descriptions along with complete details about the product for a customer to make up their mind about buying a fashion item.

Engaging imagery is key for selling a fashion garment, however, accurate descriptions help educate the consumer and help search engines present accurate results. However, adding a title, description, facets, proper categories and relevant attributes to your product are essential to guide your customers from Google search results or your website’s search bar to the product description page.  Textual content actually makes your products easier to discover.

Here is how great product content can impact fashion retail:

Effect on Customer Experience

Product descriptions answer questions that your potential customers have as they are shopping. Customers comparison shop on multiple websites to find what they are looking for, hence providing all the relevant information is important. A majority of customers will abandon a site or even a partially filled cart if they are not able to find what they are looking for.

Inadequate product content will fail to convert the shopper if it doesn't do a convincing job of communicating the features and capabilities of a product. Fashion Retail is now competitive online. You need to create an engaging experience for your customer that communicates your brand, both visually and with rich information about the product.

Drive Conversions

In the world of e-commerce, enriched product content is the difference between making a sale or losing customers to your competitors, which makes it a top priority for any online retailer. Merely offering content that shows price, short description, sizing and color, doesn’t provide anything for your customers to get excited about. 

We have explored how your product description page is the key for a customer to make a purchase. It is a virtual salesperson who is present at all times to pitch to your customers. Any missing or misleading information will have a negative impact on sales as customers will abandon a purchase . Having rich content will help your customers to understand your products, building trust to find what they’re seeking. This will, in turn, increase sales for you.

Build Credibility

Inconsistent or misspelled product content adversely affect your credibility. The language you use on your website reinforces your identity. Incorporating a specific style and tone-of-voice that is unique to you will help you differentiate your website from competitors, strengthening your brand image in the process.

It is important to be consistent in the ontology and terms you use for categories and items, and avoid misspellings, typos and grammar mistakes. Auto-generated product attributes and categories could help avoid these issues and help build better credibility.

Displaying vibrant, engaging product content on your website ensures that your product listings rank higher in search engines. When your website is the first one that customers find, it leads them to believe your site is more popular and reliable. It also lets you outrank your competitors, getting your site more clicks as a result.

When you take the time to produce great online content for your products, your customers take notice and reward you with their purchase. In the same way that a smart and personable retail clerk can convince a customer to buy in the store, your web store content must be convincing for an online customer. Your products need complete and well-crafted content if they are going to sell.

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Top Retail Trends in Supply Chain Management

As we move forward into 2019, it is only fitting to look at the latest trends in supply chain management. The supply chain is the backbone of e-commerce and in today’s age, it is more diversified than ever before. New technological innovations are being introduced in an effort to dilute this complexity. The supply chain is changing from being technologically enabled to being technologically driven. The high complexity of online markets, as well as the ever-changing and increasing customer demands, requires proactive stances from retailers. Here are some trends that you should consider in your supply chain to stay ahead of your competition.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI is the technology of the future. A wide array of self-learning algorithms are available in the market today. Huge amounts of data are generated, analyzed, linked and patterned by data scientists. With machine learning operating on this big data, decisive knowledge can be derived from it, regardless of the amount of data. AI also has multiple applications in the supply chain. Logistical coordination and organization in warehouses is being driven by intelligent and autonomous technology such as drones, robots, and self-driving vehicles. Chatbots can also be a function of logistics, for example, they can be programmed to give information such as "Your package has just been shipped", or "your order is going to be delayed". Zion Market Research published a report stating that global AI in supply chain management is estimated to cross 6,548 million USD by the year 2024. AI is an all-encompassing solution that will fundamentally revolutionize and influence the future of the supply chain.

Immersive Technologies

In the supply chain, the use of augmented, virtual or mixed realities isn’t a novelty anymore. Augmented Reality (AR) offers various assistive technologies that facilitate the employees in their day to day work. Hands-free picking aided by AR could take care of simple picking tasks. Employees wearing smart glasses enhanced by AR can immediately view barcode data on the screen and improve their productivity. Tasks in the future of the supply chain could be significantly simplified using smart glasses, displays and simulators. From the customer’s vantage, AR makes virtual trial and test of products possible without the need for actual physical products. This customer behavior could impact the supply chain in the long run with fewer products being kept at store locations and speedy shipping from larger storages in warehouses. Gartner forecasts that by 2022, 70% of enterprises will be experimenting with immersive technologies with 25% having deployed them in production.

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3D Printing

This technology has found its way into almost every imaginable industry and continues to provide limitless opportunities. 3D printing is not only used for prototypes and small series products but is being utilized in mass production of items such as car parts. The advantages of 3D printing will be even better utilized in the future. 3D-printed parts can be manufactured easily, at a cheaper cost and without compromising on quality; these factors make it especially attractive for the production of cost-intensive individual parts required in the aerospace industry, for example. Ever since its introduction, 3D printing has been evolving and improving, which makes it a viable addition to the supply chain of the future. 3D printing can not only meet rising customer requirements but also significantly shorten the supply chain. With the possibility of faster prototyping and reduced cost of production, the applications are endless, particularly in the field of consumer goods and medical care. 

These are only some of the trends that you can keep in mind while upgrading your supply chain. Artificial intelligence currently holds the highest potential as it is being rapidly innovated and integrated into every aspect of e-commerce. 3D printing and Immersive Technologies have their own upsides and will only help shape the efficiency and ramp up the dynamics of the future supply chain. Keeping up with these trends will give you a significant edge over the competition and assure lasting viability in the market.

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One of the worst nightmares for a retailer is to have a stock out or out-of-stock situation when it comes to selling products. This is a very serious issue and can be detrimental to the bottom line of any business. Aside from lost sales, stock-outs also lead to reduced customer satisfaction and lowered loyalty levels. When a customer requests to buy a product that is out of stock, they are going to end up unhappy with the inventory issue and you most certainly don’t want to disappoint your customers. Many cases of stockouts may be easily prevented by taking steps to better understand your business and products, and by refining your e-commerce processes.

Common Reasons for Stock-Outs:

Let us start by taking a look at some of the most common reasons for stock-outs: 

1. Inaccurate data: It can be hard to maintain accurate inventory counts. This may be due to several reasons such as misplaced products, product returns, shipment variances, and even stolen goods. As a result, the data in your inventory management system may not reflect what's in the warehouse.

2. Failure to reorder on time: This especially happens with your best sellers. Items with high-turnover, such as consumer products and grocery items are the most commonly affected. Due to either a poor forecast or a missed signal on a hot seller, you may run out of products before you’ve had a chance to reorder and restock your inventory.

3. Unclear communications with suppliers: Another cause of stock-outs is when you don’t have clarity in your communications with your supply chain. Failure in effective communication with suppliers may lead to missed or delayed orders, resulting in stock-outs.

Effects of Stock-outs on Business:

If a product is not available for delivery to a customer who has placed an order, there are four possible outcomes:

• Customer agrees to wait for the item: For important items, a customer may be willing to wait for it. However, the customer is likely to still harbor some disappoint in the interaction. 

• Customer back orders the item: While not the ideal solution, the order still gets fulfilled. Again, customer satisfaction declines and most customers won’t repeat this process with you unless you are the sole provider of the item.

• Customer cancels the order: Customers today are savvy. They are shopping the competition. If the customer knows that the item is available from another retailer, they may simply cancel the order and ask for a refund. The customer may be unhappy, but they may still order from you again in the future.

• Customer cancels the order, and never returns: This is the worst case scenario as a result of a stock-out situation. An angry customer here may be so disappointed in your fulfillment process that they never order from you again.

Implementing demand forecasting is one of the most important steps to avoiding stock-outs. You can try to forecast demand on your own by factoring in stock turnover, sell-through, historical sales data, and other factors such as promotions, economic state, seasonality and using your judgment. Analysis of these data points could give you insights into how products will perform. Stock-outs also tend to form patterns such as recurring on a particular day, at a particular time. Through analysis of stock-out patterns, you can better predict potential inventory and consumption problems and build a better forecast.

 In the next article in this series, we'll look at how artificial intelligence can be leveraged to help you see patterns in your data, and make suggestions to a more accurate forecast.

Discovery is essentially the most important part of product management in e-commerce. The search functionality differs across different websites, but overall, customers must be able to access relevant results quickly and easily in order for you to raise conversion rates for your business.

In this article, we shall explore how you can optimize your website for better product discovery.

Product Discovery: The Key Factor

‘Product Discovery’ is the process through which a customer comes to your online store and discovers a relevant product. The time taken to get to the product is called ‘Product Discovery Time’. As a retailer, quick product discovery is imperative, because unless your customer can find a product he/she wants to buy, no amount of traffic or conversion optimization will be able to drive revenue. 

In a study conducted by ClickTale, it was observed that for e-commerce sites without an optimized search functionality, shoppers spent more time attempting to find their desired product, but left because they were unable to find it. Alternatively, on e-commerce sites with better search functionality, they spend less time but actually find the desired product faster. As a result, the customer sticks around to make a purchase despite spending less time on the site. If a customer has a sub-par experience while searching for products, they are likely to ditch the store resulting in an overall disappointing experience.

Up The Product Discovery Game

Now that you understand how product discovery drives revenue, let’s take a look at how you can optimize the e-commerce experience for your customers. Relevance is an important theme to base an e-commerce site on. The more relevant your site is to each individual shopper, the better your product discovery experience will be.

Begin with an optimized homepage that features current promotional offers, current sales, and time-sensitive offers to drive urgency. After this, you can add:

1. Personalized product listings based on recently viewed items to save time for a shopper looking to make similar purchases.

2. Showcase trending and popular best-selling products to draw in new customers visiting for the first time that lack browsing history.

3. Display new arrivals to give your customers a chance to view and possibly purchase your newest offerings.

4. Include educational content such as guides, product reviews, and product videos. This kind of content pre-sells your products to customers who are merely browsing through your online store.

Hook By Navigation

Customers use navigation when they are searching for products but are undecided on what exactly they are looking for. So the navigation on your site needs to be both fast and intuitive so as to not lose a shopper at the start of their search journey. 

Here are a few points to bear in mind:

1. Navigation menus must display a varied collection of categories and sub-categories to narrow the range from which a shopper can search for a product.

2. Fly-out menus i.e, menus that "fly out" from the left or right side of the screen, and are hidden until the mouse is moved into the area of the screen, are a popular option used by retailers for this purpose.

3. Adding filters to the search menu can help shoppers to selectively filter products based on necessity.

4. Make filterable and sortable attributes per product as complete as possible, such as tags for colors, sizes, brand etc.

5. Allow mix and match of the filter and sort tags to make search easier. For example, You can allow customers to search for pink and black dresses in one view instead of making them go through two separate searches for each color.

Faster, Accurate Results

Customers expect to get exact results from quickly typing in words into a search box. Your site search must be capable of handling input such as product names, product types, categories, FAQs, product features, keyword variations, and misspellings for an optimized solution. Create and optimize dedicated landing pages for users coming in from search engines. In these cases, it is critical to feature relevant products immediately and include a call to action or conversion action. As an example, if a user searches for black boots, they should ideally be redirected to a page showcasing boots under shoes with black pre-selected as a filter. You must also make sure to create dedicated landing pages for top search terms relating to your products and display the correct product listings.

Error 404 pages are an often-overlooked opportunity in e-commerce. For such pages, instead of discouraging a user away from your site, you may include best-sellers, current sales, promotions, trending product lists, etc that help customers discover products they want to buy.

Dedicated Landing Pages and Secondary Product Discovery

For customers who are looking for gift ideas, landing pages dedicated to best-sellers and trending product listings can be a boon. These pages are also great to include in subscriber email series. Popular products are automatically more desirable and dedicated landing pages are a great way to take advantage of that. 

All of the above takes place fairly early in the customer shopping journey. On the other hand, there is a further possibility of upselling using product discovery that you can place at the time of purchase. You can add product recommendations and items that are frequently bought together, and include products to ‘complete the look’. Another enticing option for online shoppers is to provide them with an opportunity to get free shipping by adding extra products to increase the size of the order or provide discounts for bundled products. These practices can aid in driving up average order values by cross-selling and upselling products.

We hope this was a helpful guide to optimizing your product discovery. From creating an optimized home page to offering secondary product discovery options, it is up to you how to implement these ideas in your online store to drive revenues.

There's a lot of chatter around how Augmented Reality will change the way people shop. While Augmented Reality holds value, every technology created has its specific use case. Retailers and brands must bear in mind the several aspects each of the technology provides and select those that align to their objectives and goals. Let's delve deeper into each of these technologies -

Image recognition

Image recognition technology enables consumers to search for products by just taking a picture of them. These visual experiences are usually more flexible in nature when compared to Augmented Reality experiences for the following reasons -

No requirement for users to download an extension or app 

While there are some versions of AR applications out there for mobile websites, it's still a long way from delivering a seamless experience for its users. AR experiences that perform well often require a user to download an app. Image recognition, here plays a pivotal role as it enables interactive experiences within a retailer's mobile web, and not just the native app.

There is no need for creating 3D models 

Developing 3D models for AR experiences can often be time-consuming and expensive. Due to its complicated nature, it even requires technical skills to deliver the experience. Image recognition can be used with the existing marketing and web collaterals and can be implemented with ease. Moreover, the changes made to the content will automatically be updated in the apps, keeping the experience up-to-date.

Providing a universal and inclusive experience for shoppers 

Devices play an important role when Augmented reality is concerned. The experience may differ between low-end and high-end user devices, with the highest quality devices getting the best results. This is not an issue with Image recognition as it allows brands and retailers to ensure that their content is delivered to their customers in the same, interactive manner, irrespective of the user's device.

Limitations of Image recognition vs AR

While Image recognition provides the aforementioned benefits, there are certain aspects that set Augmented Reality apart from Image recognition:

Content is visualized in a three-dimensional manner

The type of content linked to Image recognition often includes videos, promotions, product information pages, etc. which often aids the customer's purchase journey by allowing them to learn more about the products and it offers at one go. In AR, the content is represented in a three-dimensional format. The content visualized is not three-dimensional, unlike what many Augmented Reality experiences build upon.

Image recognition provides a transactional experience, not immersive

If a user/customer aims to visualize objects in their environment, Augmented reality can be a good option to choose from, as Image recognition limits the user or customer to place digital content into the real world. This comes especially handy while buying expensive furniture - with a 'try before you buy' functionality. The customer can use the functionality and get a feel of how it may appear against a realistic setup - and nudge him or her towards a purchase.

Conclusion

To put it briefly, image recognition helps create a smooth transition between the physical and the digital worlds and help customers through a shopping journey. It allows them to interact with real products with the help of the images and the product information. For instance, it allows the user to learn more about a product's nutritional values, the user ratings, allergens, check for its alternatives, similar products, complementary products, etc.

On the other hand, Augmented Reality goes from digital to physical. It lets customers interact with virtual products in their own environment when, in fact, are not present.

While they may support different use cases, both technologies can provide customers with different kinds of engaging experiences.

New technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are gaining popularity. The technology to enable VR and AR is now inexpensive enough and powerful enough for anyone to experience. Have you considered how it can improve the selling experience for your customers?

Virtual Reality is an Immersive Experience

VR is now mainstream in a variety of applications across different fields such as education, gaming, military and movies. When users experience VR in these mainstream applications, they are no longer intimidated by how it works.

Retailers can benefit from this trend as they start to look for opportunities to leverage VR to help sell products or educate customers.  VR can be used to entertain customers with a virtual experience of your offerings. VR can supplement the bright colorful images, detailed product descriptions and reviews that customers are currently using to make a buying decision online.

Virtual Reality is still in its initial phases with companies like HTC, Oculus, and Samsung. VR is still growing in popularity with thousands of headsets being sold. The price for headsets has come down dramatically with the release of products like the Oculus GO retailing for under $200. This is opening up the market for retailers like Alibaba (see video below), Lowe’s and North Face to start using VR to promote their brands.

Including VR in retail could possibly offer efficient data and analytics, which in turn could benefit retailers in coming up with effective strategies. It could also help in reducing both marketing costs as well as product returns. Major challenges include that VR headsets are uncomfortable and require hardware, as well as the fact that they are expensive. Fortunately, many companies such as Apple, Google, HTC and Samsung are developing affordable standalone headsets or applications that operate on mobile phones.

Augmented Reality changes the Rules

Augmented Reality (AR) can be used to add information or graphics to a live image seen through a mobile phone camera. In the market for home furnishings, AR can be used to position a new couch, chair or lamp in a scene on a live view through your mobile phone camera.

How you might implement and use AR depends on what you're selling. If you have an item that can be seen through a mobile camera and enhanced with virtual elements then it might be a good candidate for AR.

How to Incorporate VR in Retail:

While there are many applications of using VR, here are two ways in which it can be effectively applied in the retail industry:

Interactive VR Experience

Retailers like Swarovski include virtual tours and apps that let customers interact with their products. Virtual tours can provide customers with an immersive experience by allowing them to visualize products virtually before trying them out in the store. To deliver an interactive VR experience, retailers need a team of 3D artists, copywriters, graphic designers, software engineers, sound engineers, and quality assurance experts. The overall cost of such a set up could easily cost $100,000.

360° Videos

Video storytelling can be an engaging way to educate customers. A 360° video experience can enable customers to get a feel of a product in space from different angles. The production of a 360° video requires live action shooting, basic video production, special effects, and post-production. Retailers would also need to provide VR headsets with relevant apps to deliver the content. The cost of making such videos could range anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 depending on how immersive an experience the retailers choose to offer.

Potential Advantages for Business:

Virtual Reality in retail has advantages as it removes the limitations on space and time and reduces the overall marketing costs. Here are a few of the potential business advantages it offers for retailers:

Specific Store Design and Layout

It is much faster and more cost effective to put together a virtual store design. In this example, customers can tour the virtual store and test store layout and design principles before the physical store is built. Virtual Reality technology is evolving and improving, meaning there are options to visualize store, test out different layouts and test customer acceptance. In addition, with a VR project, shelf and assortment layout can be tested and validated.

Customer Feedback

VR analysis can allow retailers to understand the customer journey better. Retailers identify the best performing tactics and analyze customer shopping patterns. By following customer interactions in a virtual world, a retailer can gather data on the way that a customers shops. This data can be used accordingly to adjust store layout and optimize product placement.

Dominate the Marketplace

VR is still in the early stages of market acceptance with scarce content. Innovative retailers can take advantage of this fact and learn along the way as the underlying technology keeps improving. If your target market includes shoppers who might be enticed by VR or willing to try VR, then you should consider it. V-commerce can be one element of your marketing plan to help differentiate you from a competitor, and draw in consumers who appreciate the experience. 

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