Harnessing Technology To Boost Your Retail Store: Live Selling, How-To Guides and Pitfalls to Avoid
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by: Fiza Khan
Technology has changed the way retail stores are run, and it can be overwhelming for small businesses to decide which strategies to pursue. Live selling, how-to guides, and avoiding common pitfalls are three ways that you can use technology to boost your retail store. Live selling gives customers a chance to interact with you, and your store, in real-time. How-to guides can help you to quickly get up to speed on the latest technology, and by avoiding common pitfalls, you can ensure that your store is running as efficiently as possible. Harnessing technology can be intimidating, but with the right strategies, you can make your retail store thrive.
What is live selling and how can it help your retail store?
Live selling, also known as in-store selling, allows customers to interact with sales associates in real-time using virtual tools. If a customer is interested in a product that you have in your store, live selling allows a sales associate to show product information to the customer, such as size, color, and product reviews. It also lets customers ask questions, and receive answers, in real-time. By engaging customers in real-time, you can increase sales, reduce returns, and provide a better customer experience. Live selling is best suited for products that are high in price, and/or have a large range of options. Once you’ve identified which products you want to focus on, you can create skills for virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, and Google Home, so that customers can easily find the product information they need.
How to create effective how-to guides for your retail store
How-to guides are a set of instructions that walk customers through the use of products in your store. Creating these guides can help you to reduce the time you spend training new employees, and provide customers with an easy way to use products in your store. There are three ways that you can create how-to guides for your retail store: Create guides manually, use software to create guides automatically, or hire a company to create guides for you. Creating guides manually can be time consuming, but you can create guides quickly, and easily, with software. If you want to create guides that are custom to your store, hiring a company to create guides for you can be a great option.
Common pitfalls to avoid when using technology in your retail store
Not investing in hardware - Retail stores are often open and closed at irregular hours, and it’s important to have hardware that can withstand frequent use. If a piece of hardware breaks, it can cause interruptions in your store’s operations, and put your store at risk of losing customers.
Not hiring the right people - When you’re looking for new employees, make sure that they have experience in the retail industry and with the relevant tech tools. Hiring people who’ve worked in retail, and understand the industry, can make it easier to train new employees, and hire fewer people in the future.
Not having a backup plan - Technology can break, and if you don’t have a backup plan in place, your store can be negatively impacted. Make sure that you have a plan in place to deal with issues, and outages, related to technology in your store.
Strategies for boosting your retail store with technology
- Harness the power of live selling - Live selling can help you to engage customers, boost sales, and improve the customer experience.
- Create an easy-to-use mobile app - Customers want to be able to engage with your store, and products, from anywhere. Creating an app, or building a mobile version of your website, can help you to reach customers on their terms. For example, The OFFPRICE App stands out from the crowd thanks to its user friendly interface and its focus on creating an enjoyable user experience. The app is designed to make it easy for buyers and vendors to use schedules, push alerts, maps, exhibitor lists, social media links, and much more make this free app the best way to make the most of your show experience.
- Use a chatbot - Chatbots are becoming increasingly common in retail, and they can help customers to find the product information that they need, quickly and easily.
- Create in-store Wi-Fi - In-store Wi-Fi helps to create a seamless experience for customers, and can help to boost your sales by allowing customers to shop online.
- Take advantage of augmented reality - Augmented reality can help to create a fun in-store experience, and can encourage customers to spend more time in your store.
Benefits of live selling, how-to guides, and avoiding common pitfalls
- Customers will spend more in your store - By providing customers with a seamless experience, and answering their questions in real-time, you can increase the amount that they spend in your store.
- You can reduce returns - Customers can return products for a number of reasons, including that they aren’t able to use the product, or they don’t like it. By creating how-to guides, and providing product information in real-time, you can help to reduce the number of products that are returned.
- You can retain employees - By creating a positive environment for employees, and providing them with the right tools to do their jobs, you can retain employees.
Conclusion – Harnessing technology to boost your retail store
Technology can help you to boost your retail store in many different ways, but the best way to use technology is to help customers to make decisions. Instead of customers having to rely on information from your website, or app, they can get answers in real-time by speaking with a sales associate. Choose one, two, or all three strategies to boost your retail store with technology, and don’t be afraid to try new things.