Getting ‘personal’ with your shopper

Meet your new in-store personal shopper. She meets your customers when they enter the store. But she doesn’t talk much.

And she’s only about eight inches tall. That’s because “she” is a mobile computer.

Providing your customers with a mobile device that acts as a “personal shopper” allows you to deliver a whole new level of self-service that lets your customers get their shopping done faster and with less frustration. It also unlocks a whole new level of efficiency for your retail operations.

As customers walk into your store, they simply use their loyalty card at a kiosk to release their personal shopper mobile device. They then use the personal shopper to scan items as they shop, to check pricing, to monitor basket totals and to view store promotions.

The personal shopper can even provide real-time individualised buying recommendations as the customer shops. For instance, in a grocery store, the personal shopper might provide a suggestion for an easy side dish to go with the fish the customer just scanned and placed in his or her shopping cart.

The personal shopper can also be particularly helpful when customers are registering or buying gifts for a wedding or baby shower.

Providing your customers with a personal shopping device can be a very effective way to drive additional sales, particularly given that studies show that more than 70 per cent of purchasing decisions are made in the store.

The personal shopper is probably most useful, however, in eliminating check-out delays, which remain a big complaint for retail customers. In fact, nearly half of customers will actually avoid a retailer in the future after waiting in line longer than five minutes, according to a report by Brickstream.

By giving customers a personal shopper, you allow them to avoid the hassle of the checkout line altogether. Instead, they experience frictionless checkout as they leave the store.

This new personal shopper not only improves customer service, it also provides associates with the tools they need to easily answer customer questions on the spot, to improve inventory management and to streamline product returns.

For instance, an associate can use the mobile device to quickly scan a tag on an empty shelf to determine if replacement inventory is available. The devices can also expedite the processing of returned merchandise by allowing associates to immediately re-enter merchandise into inventory and to see where that merchandise should be restocked on the shelves.

They can also use the devices to quickly process incoming shipments.

Given that 90 per cent of all retail sales still occur in retail stores, meeting customers’ needs on-site remains a big priority for retailers. Personal shopper technology can help retailers deliver a more personal experience to customers while also improving the efficiency of their in-store operations.

— The writer is Director of Retail & Hospitality Solutions EMEA, Zebra Technologies.