Digital technology is changing in-store sales

In 2017, it is no longer enough to make promotions and have a wide range of products to attract and retain customers in stores. In the age of digital, mobility and connected objects, customer satisfaction means reinventing the in-store experience by taking into account new consumer behaviours and buying habits.

Get to know your customers better

Only a thorough knowledge of your customers will enable you to respond effectively to their new expectations. However, accumulating data without exploiting them is perfectly sterile.

Pro tip

• Collect email addresses on your site. You quickly get a list of people interested in your products and services to whom you can send emails each month with news and promotions.
• Organise a survey to ask your customers’ opinion. Use the results to improve your communication, offer and services.Take advantage of your presence on Faceboook to generate, collect and promote your customers’ opinion.

Scenarise your store

The competition of digital must not make you forget the good old recipes: showcase your products to inspire your customers. This is all the more important in the age of online commerce. The store must become everything that an e-shop cannot offer: a place to meet, share knowledge, experiment.

The sales area will be less and less a place where articles are exhibited and more and more a real theatre where their arrangement will be based on a real scenarisation.

Pro tip

• Create different worlds and atmospheres: your customers come to you for ideas.
• Use natural and innovative materials. Highlight local productions and craftsmen.
• Promote cross-selling by mixing plants, pots and decorative elements… to create a harmonious decorative style and inspire your customers.
• Consider engaging all 5 senses. Create emotion.

Connect real and digital

It is not a question of blindly adopting the latest technological innovations but rather of exploiting all the digital possibilities to make life easier for the customer, to offer him a modern experience, while preserving the warmth of the store and further expanding its range.

Pro tip

Here is what you could make available to your customers:

• Free Wifi and the possibility to recharge tablet or smartphone in a coffee corner;
• Digital terminals to consult your catalogue, order and pay online;
• A digital device to order bulky or heavy items (soil, fertilizer, maxi pots or decorations, trees,…): the customer pays and picks up his purchases at the checkout at the end of the shopping;
• Demonstration videos, tips.

Make the purchasing process more fluid

Consumers are increasingly switching from the Internet to the real world and vice versa. However, according to a recent survey, 30% of consumers reportedly noticed differences in online and in-store prices.

Since the advent of e-commerce, consumers have also become much more sensitive to the availability of goods. If they make the trip to the store, they expect to have a service similar to that of an e-commerce site.

Pro tip

• Make sure your communication is perfectly consistent: in store, on your website or on your Facebook page… give the same information about price, date, duration of promotion, etc.
• However, you can plan exclusive promotions for one or the other channel: promotions only valid on online orders, special offers for your Facebook fans, etc.

Hire and train expert salespeople

The new shopping experience is also based on the presence of passionate and trained salespeople, ready to share their knowledge and know-how in gardening and decoration.

Pro tip

• Plan training sessions for your salespeople on new sales techniques
• Organise workshops and demonstrations to initiate the culture of knowledge sharing