Not Your Mom’s Shopping List
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Today’s Digital Lists Can Increase Basket Size and Build Loyalty
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I remember my mom’s shopping list. Usually written on scraps of paper and stuffed in her purse, it served an effective single-function purpose: memory enhancement. And while it was mobile, it was easily misplaced, difficult to replicate, and sharing it with others required a physical handoff.
Today’s shopping list bears little resemblance to my mom’s; it is digital, easily storeable and modifiable, mobile and social. It can be created at home online while viewing items on sale from a retail vendor’s website, or created on a mobile device.
Most important for retailers, when opened in-store on a smartphone, it helps to increase basket size.
It turns out that the digital shopping list — combined with in-store wifi, mobile ecommerce and in-store navigation — helps to move shoppers more quickly to their desired items by suggesting efficient shopping paths. This doesn’t necessarily mean less time in the store – or money spent.
Herb Sorensen, known as the Shopper’s Scientist, notes that a more efficient shopping experience actually increases basket size because it offers more time to browse.
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Sorenson notes on his blog:
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“We have documented repeatedly that shoppers waste as much as 80% of their time in the store, and this wasted time represents the potential for large increases in sales for those who learn to leverage it, whether retailers or their suppliers. We have also noted that the principle time wasters for the shopper are decisions/information seeking:
Where is? (navigation search — choice of path and shelf location)
Which do I want? (item search — selection choice)
What’s more, knowing a person’s shopping list, an mcommerce app could also suggest specific items that a shopper might have forgotten – such as the hamburger buns or ketchup if the shopper included hamburger meat but forgot to include these items. All of these capabilities can increase basket size.
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|80% of mobile consumers are influenced by in-store Wi-Fi as a factor in deciding where they shop.
motion infographic on YouTube
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Loyal Mobile shoppers also spend more
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In a competitive space such as grocery retailing, where margins are around two percent, mobile can provide supermarkets with a direct connection to customers as well as opportunities to acquire and retain new customers if they provide strong value.
As a result, grocery retailers are able to build stronger loyalty ties with customers and, ultimately, drive increased sales.
Rebecca Roose, senior product marketing manager at MyWebGrocer, Winooski, VT, which develops mobile platforms for some of the leading retailers, noted recently that mobile shoppers spent 68 percent more than in-store shoppers. And because these mobile shoppers build shopping lists based on things that are on sale that week, they become more loyal – “They’re not going to shop anywhere else,” Ms. Roose said.
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The Big Payoff: Personalizing the Experience
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Pinkberry Serves Up Guest Wi-Fi Services with a Side of Rewards
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What if the retail store is able to combine the insights revealed by a shopper’s preferences and habits online (including those revealed on the virtual shopping list) with realtime presence analytics as the shopper moves through the physical store?
Just-in-time offers. This customer likes Newman’s lemonade in summer, instant gourmet coffee in winter – on warm days push the lemonade discount coupon to her smartphone, in winter push the gourmet coffee with a discount coupon for coffee mugs. And how about that CoffeeMate sugar-free Hazelnut creamer that she always buys around Christmas?
Now we’re talking loyalty.
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Additional information
- PurpleWiFi guest blog by @LinaArseneault | 80% of mobile consumers are influenced by in-store Wi-Fi when deciding where to shop
- The Future of Wi-Fi => Don’t Be Left Behind | inforgraphic
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If you’re still worried about embracing the very technology that is threatening your business, I leave you with the story of William Durant, co-founder of General Motors and Chevrolet. Initially, he was highly skeptical of the gas-powered “horseless carriage,” thinking them so dangerous he wouldn’t allow his daughter to ride in one. He wasn’t alone. By 1900, there was an enormous public outcry for safety regulations. Rather than wait for the government to intercede, Durant embarked on a mission to build the safer machines consumers were demanding. He succeeded by listening to transitioning consumer expectations and embraced technical innovation head on. (For the record, prior to the revolution he helped bring about, his Durant-Dort Carriage company was the leading producer of horse-drawn buggies in the world.)
