Generally, retailers see in the practice of Showrooming a threat to their sustainability. While it is impossible to slow the rise of e-commerce, physical points of sale must deploy new strategies to invite consumers to visit stores. Find out what are the reasons for the success of showrooming, as well as the levers available for the distribution sector to succeed in the face of online competition.
What is showrooming?
The Showrooming refers to the practice of consumers who visit a store to discover a product, in order to validate their intention to buy. Directly on site using their smartphone, they will check the availability of the item on e-commerce sites or price comparison sites, to ensure that the offer they have in front of them is the most advantageous. The sale is then generally carried out online, and not in store. Physical shops are therefore becoming real exhibition spaces that are accessible and free. Showrooming has also seen the emergence of an opposite, but nevertheless related, trend, Webrooming or RoPo. This practice consists of pre-identifying the consumer on the Internet in order to obtain information on a product, then buying in store.
The main reasons for the rise of showrooming
The showrooming is a new stage in the customer journey perceived as an additional difficulty by distribution professionals. The reasons that push the consumer to make an online purchase are various such as:
- A shortage of stock in store
- Waiting at the cash register that is too long
- Sometimes more interesting prices on the internet
Lower prices online
The possibility of paying for a product at a lower price than in store is one of the main drivers that leads consumers to buy online. Promotions, flash offers and discounts offered for a first order or following registration for a newsletter are major assets for e-retailers.
Out of stock in stores
The retail sector suffers from the reign of timeliness: the hurried consumer has no intention of waiting to buy. This requires companies to set up heavy logistics in order to meet this requirement (supply management and access to a storage location). E-retailers don't have this problem. However, if the consumer cannot find the desired reference in stores, he will turn to sites where stock is available.
Home delivery
Home delivery marked the advent of e-commerce, especially when it is free and fast. This option does not encourage you to go to the store, if it does not promise a real experience that is worth visiting. Because going to the store represents a constraint linked to a loss of time (taking a means of transport, waiting in line to try and/or to pay for the purchase), which is not necessarily counterbalanced by an added value justifying the race.
Note: for its counterpart, webrooming, it is the costs associated with shipping and delivery times that are obstacles to buying on the internet.
The challenges of physical stores
In order to face competition on the Internet, the main retail challenge is then to reinvent the customer experience in stores: maintaining businesses requires particular attention to its customers. For many businesses, building a digital strategy meets the need to offer a new experience and services to increasingly qualified and personalized customers. By multiplying the points of contact with their customers through cross-channel, physical points of sale at the same time multiply their chances of attracting them back to the store. Physical stores have no shortage of assets to capitalize on: delivery conditions are the main obstacle to online sales, as well as after-sales service.
Offer an omnichannel experience
The major challenge for retail is to make the boundaries between stores and websites ever finer, because omnichannel represents an important growth driver that aims to create a better retail experience.
By multiplying online contact points, social networks and physical stores, the prospect has a wide choice of purchasing channels, one of which will inevitably find his favors. Deploying an omnichannel marketing strategy makes it possible to drive in-store traffic, by attracting qualified prospects into stores through digital technology. This technique leads to focusing on a personalized and unique customer experience in stores in order to transform prospects into customers more easily and thus increase the conversion rate.
Need an example of a tool to offer an omnichannel experience? Digitizing points of sale using digital signage is proving to be one of the most profitable strategies. It consists in positioning screens — tablets, totems and touch screens to consult a catalog or order directly — in key high-traffic locations. The brand must be able to use these innovations to put physical points of sale back at the heart of the customer experience.
Offer more advanced in-store services
Physical retailers must develop advanced, exclusive and expert services as well as in-store advantages, in order to convince their prospects to buy from them. The main objective is to give meaning to a visit to the store: it must be experienced as a real experience and offer added value, whether it leads to a purchase or not. The first driver of success is to provide a tailor-made service and expertise: it is absolutely necessary for the teams to be as informed as the customer. Increasingly connected, the consumer must be able to interact with an equally savvy seller to be able to rely on his opinion.
Finally, an e-commerce site provides customers with ultra-personalized navigation: thanks to the history of purchases and its discovery path, it highlights products that meet their expectations. Their buying journey is therefore perfectly marked out; a store salesperson must be able to demonstrate a great ability to listen in order to offer a comparable service.
Strengthen customer engagement
Another possibility to help businesses cope with the influx of online sales is to develop customer engagement through a loyalty strategy. This may be based on a rewards' policy (promotions, exclusive additional services, etc.) for customers who visit the store. This is where QR codes come in, for example, which create the link between physical commerce and the online store: by giving rise to promotions and discounts, they encourage consumers to visit the brand. Stores can also take advantage of their smartphone use in situ to encourage them to share their opinion directly, or to collect their contact details by subscribing to a newsletter.
It is by cultivating a close connection with its customers that it is possible to create a feeling of attachment to the brand. In the case of new consumers, the use of online marketing campaigns is essential; they must be addressed in an appropriate manner via the channels they are required to consult, in particular social networks.
Digital signage for connected points of sale
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In order to fight against the drop in the number of customers, physical stores have many tools at their disposal to adapt and imagine new concepts of experiences. The digitization of retail spaces is one of the most effective and profitable solutions to generate qualified in-store traffic and boost their sales. A true bridge between the physical point of sale and the digital world, digital signage is proving to be a considerable tool for offering an innovative experience. Cenareo and its management system dedicated to digital signage facilitate interaction, and add a vast area of expression to broadcast impacting content. Digital signage is a very powerful communication medium, and can be deployed easily and tailor-made according to its objectives. Flexible and intuitive, the Cenareo solution makes this innovative communication channel a testing ground with a high ROI, to adapt to the digitalization needs of retail spaces.
Looking for ways to generate qualified traffic and offer a new experience to your customers? Cenareo supports you in the deployment of your marketing strategy, thanks to its system dedicated to digital signage. Create, plan and broadcast content that impacts your screen fleet to meet tomorrow's trends and the expectations of your customers.
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