
Retail shopping presuming regular operations as COVID-19 situation impact is getting over. However, new virus variants, heated-up inflation, and hard-to-find labor spelled uncertainty. It has accelerated digital shopping adoption and days of holiday shoppers rushing from one store to another seem as if it no longer exists.
The days are gone when shoppers count on one-day sales or attractive discounts. They start looking for gifts quite earlier and browse at least several channels to compare prices and buy the best gift. What the offline retailers should do? Do they have any opportunity to turn the sales table upside down? yes, they have.
According to a study, the real change in holiday shopping was experienced in the last two weeks of the year when sales get increased by 11%. Many consumers prefer the buy-online-and-pickup-in-store fulfillment options where retailers have a chance to appeal to the consumer. 43% of the customers still favor shopping from the retail store. When retailers eliminate all the friction points from the in-store shopping experience and provide unmatched digital shopping experiences, thriving in the holiday season with high sales and ROI becomes possible.
Converging physical and digital channels to deliver a connected shopping experience is all-important. The solutions from Salesforce for the retail industry help retailers simplify the complex customer journey and meet their expectations for convenience. The Salesforce consulting company would help in enhancing the in-store digital experience as an extension to the online shopping journey.
Check Our Previous Blog on Choosing The Right Salesforce Consulting Partner
What is Salesforce CRM for the retail industry?
The Salesforce commerce cloud has created wonders in the online retail industry in the customer journey from discovery to delivery with automation, intelligent recommendations, and trusted relationships.
Salesforce CRM for the retail industry provided Salesforce customer 360 that has to sped up retail transformation by uniting marketing, commerce, service, and digital information on one connected platform. The intelligent solution provides a 360-degree view of customers at different touchpoints, which further helps in delivering consistent service everywhere.
Salesforce solution has helped the House of Anita Dongre store by connecting online and offline customer data and providing a single view of all the data. It has helped the retailer to launch targeted marketing campaigns, engage ecommerce customers better, and deliver faster service with multiple fulfillment options.
Let’s see how it helps your retail store to supercharge store sales and ROI with unique capabilities.
How does Salesforce help in making online experiences intuitive?
Reimagine the associates’ role with digital tools
In the new normal, the shopping trends are presuming to pre-pandemic levels, but the shortage of labor is still going on, which has made things a little difficult for retailers. Now, the limited store associates are playing multiple roles from fulfillment experts and customer service agents to Ecommerce pros and social media managers. Wearing many hats, the labors can perform their job splendidly when they have access to customers’ data in real-time.
With digital tools, associates can easily and quickly access customers’ profiles, buying preferences, browsing patterns, and demographics. The complete view of customers’ data helps associates to deliver personalized services by promptly answering their order-related, purchase, return history, ETAs, and reward balances questions.
Manage inventory optimally
The out-of-stock item in the inventory is the biggest nightmare for retailers when customers are asking for the same. During the holiday season, it’s a big loss, which retailers can better manage by empowering store associates with instant access to store inventory and distribution center inventory.
When the customer demands an item, that’s out-of-stock at the current store, the store associate can search the item to see if it’s available at the store at another location, then associates suggest customers buy it online and get it delivered to their doorstep.
It becomes possible when the order management system connects inventory data of warehouses, distribution centers, and stores, which provides a real-time view of inventory to the associates. Enabling buy online and pick-up in-store or doorstep delivery makes customers happy and is a boon for busy customers.
Enable digital payment options
At retail stores, standing in long queues for checkout during the holiday season is tiresome. It has turned many offline shoppers into online shoppers to order the item without visiting the store and waiting in long queues for payment. Retailers can go an extra mile in making payments through cash or credit without standing at the pay terminal.
With tap-and-go credit cards gaining traction, customers no need to stand in long queues for checkout. Enabling more payment options such as mobile wallet, pay over time, and pay-now-pay-later at POS system help retailers to provide convenience during payment.
Offer flexible fulfillment options
The order fulfillment options have evolved in the pandemic time where customers prefer to buy online and pick up the order from a curbside or nearby store. Even, some retailers turned the locations into fulfillment centers known as the dark stores. This approach has helped many retailers to increase sales and ROI by two folds.
This holiday season, retailers can avail of the flexible fulfillment options that instill confidence in the users regarding timely shipping as extended shipping remain a problem during the holiday season. Moreover, the eco-friendly delivery option helps in prioritizing convenience as the customer will choose the delivery time and location.
Transform order return experiences
The returns are never healthier for retail businesses, but it’s very common in online and offline shopping. Consumer reports for returns in 2021 state that nearly 10% of merchandise of the total sales is returned. This is a big loss to the retailers, but it must be handled fairly. The return experience should be connected and convenient.
The retailers found saying that when the return experience is reimagined using Salesforce eCommerce solutions while keeping customers’ convenience at the core, the customers’ willingness to purchase from the same retailer has increased. It can be done in various ways such as drop off online returns at the nearby stores and getting the amount credited within a day. The excellent results from seamless return experiences have geared up retailers to optimize the return experiences.
Personalize service channels
Still, people prefer to shop offline because of the personal touch they experience during offline shopping. The in-store shopping experience is enhanced by introducing the personal touch sentiment in customer service.
It includes training associates to help the customer support team, leveraging AI-powered chatbots, and providing access to customers’ data to the support team so that they can make custom recommendations. Make sales associates ask customers to provide their feedback to improve services.
How can AIMDek help you create wonders by leveraging the power of Salesforce solutions?
As a retailer, do you want to connect with holiday shoppers uniquely? Do you want to make the shopping experience intuitive and fast? If so, the Salesforce solution addresses all the issues and helps you make services better. However, alone choosing a Salesforce cloud solution won’t help you.
You need a team of certified Salesforce consultant that provides the best Salesforce consulting services and implementation services to get a custom Salesforce solution deployed that works well with legacy system and allow you to harness the full potential.
HIRE OUR SALESFORCE EXPERTS
AIMDek can help you spread joy and comfort with in-store experience digitalization through Salesforce solution leverage. The company is a strategic partner of Salesforce and has a team of certified Salesforce professionals that help you every step of the way. Let’s talk![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]