In-store Retailers Struggle To Keep Up With Price Expectations Of Online Shoppers

Elec­tron­ic Ser­vice Labels (ESLs) may offer retail­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ties to inte­grate and improve in-store con­sumer shop­ping expe­ri­ences.

Pat Hong By Pat Hong from Linkdex. Join the discussion » 0 comments

Online shop­ping, with it’s adapt­able pric­ing, fre­quent pro­mo­tions, and abil­i­ty to com­pare retail offer­ings quick­ly and con­ve­nient­ly, offers con­sumers a lev­el of ser­vice and reas­sur­ance that in-store retail­ers often strug­gle to match. New research from Dis­play­da­ta indi­cates that in-store shopp­ping still has a role to play in con­sumer jour­neys, and the intro­duc­tion of Elec­tron­ic Ser­vice Labels (ESLs) may offer retail­ers the oppor­tu­ni­ties to inte­grate and improve in-store con­sumer shop­ping expe­ri­ences.


Research con­duct­ed by Diplay­da­ta sur­vey­ing 2,000 U.S. and UK con­sumers, has revealed a grow­ing trend in which con­sumers are “show­room­ing,” or brows­ing goods in-store before going online to com­pare prices and make a pur­chase. Thir­ty-two per­cent of the con­sumers sur­veyed said they engaged in show­room­ing in-store, using their mobile devices to check-out prices in store.

Oth­er stud­ies mea­sured the show­room­ing fig­ure to be clos­er to 40 per­cent, ris­ing to an even greater 84 per­cent accord­ing to one Deloitte study when con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of shop­pers who use their smart­phones for research before head­ing into a store.

Dig­i­tal expe­ri­ences are exert­ing ever greater influ­ence on con­sumer pur­chase jour­neys. The study esti­mates that an over­whelm­ing major­i­ty, 97 per­cent, of con­sumers are now reg­u­lar­ly shop­ping online, hav­ing become accus­tomed to the val­ue and con­ve­nience that online shop­ping offers.

It’s easy to see why. Online retail ben­e­fits from the abil­i­ty to change pric­ing based on sup­ply, demand, or sea­son­al pro­mo­tions, and so often is able to offer con­sumers bet­ter val­ue. Accord­ing to the report, Ama­zon, for exam­ple, makes 2.5 mil­lion price changes each day, while Wal­mart and Best Buy make around 50,000 price changes per month.

Con­sumers have come to trust in the val­ue of online goods. The report reveals that 42 per­cent of U.S. shop­pers still believe in-store retail­ers offer dif­fer­ent prices online than they do in-store, and 72 per­cent have been dis­cour­aged from pur­chas­ing goods in-store because they were con­cerned the price was not good val­ue.

Where Does In-Store Retail Fit In?

Despite this, there is still a strong case to make for in-store retail with­in con­sumer jour­neys. Dis­play­data’s sur­vey found that 83 per­cent of U.S. con­sumers and 78 per­cent of UK con­sumers still make a large num­ber of their pur­chas­es in-store.

In cer­tain sec­tors, such as gro­cery, health and beau­ty, home­ware, and DIY, the major­i­ty of con­sumer spend­ing still takes place in a retail store, accord­ing to Dis­play­da­ta:

instore-shopping-sectors

Why are retail stores still so impor­tant to shop­pers? Because con­sumers val­ue:

  • See­ing, touch­ing, and try­ing goods.
  • Tak­ing advan­tage of in-store pro­mo­tions.
  • Ask­ing ques­tions eas­i­ly.

In par­tic­u­lar, the abil­i­ty to see and expe­ri­ence items was con­sid­ered by 75 per­cent of U.S. shop­pers, and 80 per­cent of UK shop­pers, to be the most impor­tant rea­son for vis­it­ing a store.

Why Integrate In-Store Retail Experiences With Online?

While some stores have intro­duced inno­v­a­tive strate­gies to link up online/offline con­sumer jour­neys, with a num­ber of ecom­merce retail­ers offer­ing Click-and-Col­lect ser­vices to dri­ve traf­fic in-store, there remains a dis­con­nect between the expec­ta­tions con­sumers have of brands as a result of the val­ue and con­ve­nience they expe­ri­ence while shop­ping online, and that they receive in-store.

For exam­ple, 58 per­cent of shop­pers are buy­ing more goods on pro­mo­tion than at the start of 2012 when shop­ping for gro­ceries, an incen­tive that has become com­mon­place, if not the stan­dard, for dig­i­tal retail. If retail­ers want to con­nect up con­sumer jour­neys and reduce the drop-off from show­room­ing, they will need to intro­duce sys­tems able to cater to con­sumer’s high expec­ta­tions of con­ve­nience and val­ue.

Introducing Electronic Shelf Labels

Dis­play­data’s report also espous­es the poten­tial impact of Elec­tron­ic Shelf Labels (ESLs), which gives retail­ers the abil­i­ty to adapt pric­ing and offer pro­mo­tions to the effect online retail­ers have been able to offer con­sumers for years.

It’s a pow­er­ful propo­si­tion and one could bring real val­ue to in-store retail oper­a­tions. Accord­ing to Patrick Con­nol­ly, senior ana­lyst at ABI Research:

[Elec­tron­ic shelf labels] will give retail­ers far more con­trol and flex­i­bil­i­ty, with the abil­i­ty to reward loy­al cus­tomers, dynam­i­cal­ly match pric­ing to vary­ing demand, while also meet­ing the needs of price sen­si­tive cus­tomers.”

Retail­ers need to rethink in-store expe­ri­ences and view them as con­sumers do. As a ver­sa­tile resource that sits with­in an inter­twin­ing, omnichan­nel jour­ney, able to pro­vide a seam­less user expe­ri­ences with the rest of a con­sumers dig­i­tal inter­ac­tions. If they can bridge this gap between dig­i­tal and phys­i­cal shop­ping, then the dis­tinc­tion between online and offline brand offer­ings will work togeth­er, serv­ing con­sumers in a man­ner inde­pen­dent of chan­nels, but cater­ing instead to the over­all cohe­sion of the user expe­ri­ence.

Pat Hong

Written by Pat Hong

Editor at Linkdex/Inked, Linkdex

Pat covers the SEO industry, digital marketing trends, and anything and everything around Linkdex. He also authors Linkdex's data analysis and reports, analysing the state of search in various industries.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

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