FEATURE Demographics, Data
Matt Cater, Owner and Founder of retail display specialist Fathom, discusses the ma make when introducing more technology to yo
It seems to be a regular occurrence that some expert somewhere is ringing a death knell for the high street and, at an outward glance, it may appear to be true. We have already seen many well-known institutions vanish without trace, apparently due to the continuous rise of online shopping.
However, within the world of flooring retail, I would argue that it is a slightly different scenario, as the shopping journey tends to require a more tactile experience. Flooring is a specialist area for the same reasons you wouldn’t generally buy a new car from the internet- most of us would prefer to physically go to see and touch it before purchasing. At least for the foreseeable future, this will most likely still remain the case when purchasing flooring.
However, in the same way that car dealers have created a shopper experience that encompasses both online and physical experiences via the use of current and emerging technologies, so must the flooring industry.
Carpetright, for example, has already made some headway into embracing technology with its own ‘Room Visualiser’. This is a website portal where you can upload your own room shots and try out different flooring products in the virtual environment, all with the intent of allowing you to release your inner interior designer via the use of suggestive trends and colours, etc.
Cost aside, it’s relatively easy to jump into the current crop of technology available for retailers. From simple display screens, radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips, through to fully immersive VR environments, technology is expanding the methods in which it is possible to deliver information and inspiration. However, when planning new and wonderful ways to capture the attention of your customers, unless you truly understand the behaviour of your shoppers - and more succinctly the demographics of your shoppers – it’s highly likely any technology will fail.
This will mean taking account of how the different generations are likely to face their own purchasing decisions. ‘Baby Boomers’ are most likely the generation whose shopping journey will leave the smallest digital impression, and where purchasing decisions are likely to be the more traditional residential approach of store visits and self-selection. The flooring purchase journeys of ‘Generation Z’, however, are more likely to be entirely digital, or commercially led in the form of pre-selected choices by architects or housing developments. Therefore, technology in the flooring sector has to be selected to create an inclusive and harmonious shopping journey- from the moment that the initial browsing session begins online, or an in-store visit is made.
The resultant technological response will need to be strategic and intuitive. It will need to start mining for information, capturing data from the basics of age; budget; reason for
22 | Tomorrow’s Retail Floors
buying, all the way through to the more esoteric items of data, such as aspirational lifestyle. This is all with the sole intention of being able to enrich the experience you present back to the customer, giving them things they really do want to interact with and creating a scenario in which the lowest level of interactions generate the most sales.
Shopping for flooring can be a daunting and confusing experience. There are a multitude of products out there, many of which look and feel the same, with the actual reasons for difference between them hidden deep within the technical details. In addition, purchasing flooring is an occasional and costly pastime, so it’s no surprise that people might feel intimidated by the plethora of choices in front of them. It’s important that the primary function of any customer-facing technology be employed as a guide, a virtual expert if you will.
It should be intuitive enough to quickly gather relevant data to help streamline and personalise the shopping journey. This will create a scenario in which the customer feels as though the brand really knows them.
If you start with data as a focal point, it is then possible to develop and introduce other levels of technology that build upon this. For example, what if through an online browsing session you had already made some possible choices of products that you found interesting and had saved this to an app on your phone? Then imagine if, the moment you walked into the flooring retailer’s store, the merchandising stand for this product introduced itself to you and guided you quickly and easily to your product choices.
This type of engaging and intuitive use of technology, when done well, will ultimately reward any organisation with valuable data that can truly be transformative. This is not only just about helping to control and manage stock levels, prices paid, quantities purchased etc. The really valuable bit comes from creating data that can be used to help understand customer behaviour, hot and emerging trends, and even predictive behaviour, thereby opening up opportunities to create future shopping experiences. Through these new and insight-driven experiences, flooring retailers could increase levels of customer engagement and encourage consumers to make purchase decisions that they feel are fully informed and beneficial to them. This, in turn, could help to build consumer trust, brand loyalty, and increased profits.
But here’s a caveat, in a world where every piece of digital data about us helps create our own personal digital signature, and we only have to look at how effective Amazon and Facebook are at targeting us within minutes of any type of online browsing session. It’s important for anyone looking to data mine in this way to be aware of the personalisation vs privacy paradox.
www.tomorrowsretailfloors.com
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