Member Article

In-store mobile mistrust negatively affects online sales

- By Gary Topiol, Managing Director EMEA at Nudge Rewards

Just as today’s shoppers no longer differentiate between channels, nor should retailers. This includes in-store staff who should looks to utilise all available platforms to deliver great customer experiences.

Nearly a third (32%) of all customer facing workers claim they use their connected devices to answer customers’ questions, yet despite this increasing use of mobile devices, our recent research found that 40% of retail staff think that trust around mobile device use at work is an issue. If this distrust continues, retailers run the risk of making channels run in silos, creating a disconnect for shoppers and making sales staff jobs harder.

As omnichannel retailing comes to the fore, businesses need to optimise all channels and embrace shoppers’ non-linear paths to purchase. For example, online shoppers will often visit the physical store to ‘showroom’ – trying on products or simply seeing them in reality – before looking to continue their journey online.

As a result, businesses need to be at hand to assist in consumers’ complex shopping journeys. This means that retailers need to, where possible, bridge the gap between online and offline experiences, providing customers with a seamless view of the brand across all platforms. In-store shoppers often expect the endless aisle capabilities of online when in-store and may want to order items available online to be delivered to a location of their choice.

This kind of activity shows that store staff, now more than ever before, need to be equipped with technology that can help answer customer queries and, as a direct result, drive online conversions.

By placing trust in store staff to professionally utilise mobile devices in-store, to help customers along their shopping journey, retailers will reap the rewards online as shoppers move down the sales funnel and make purchases following positive in-store experiences.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Reporter .