U.S Retail Challenges

“It is scary, it is a big investment. It is scary to learn something new and change over what you are used into a new system.”

The extensive array of inventory, varied needs of order management, and complexities around the actual customer experience create a high barrier to entry for retailers. There is no guarantee that the investment will pay off, or that retailers will be able to resolve all of their issues with one system. Retailers are often hesitant to take the next step. But, the reality is that many retailers have already taken steps towards Omnichannel. Using mobile points of sale, having points of purchase on multiple channels, or using member apps to take payments or schedule orders are pieces to the puzzle. A lot of these technologies are already being used by retailers. But, they have not always worked together. Omnichannel is about creating an ecosystem where retailers can feel confident to create new solutions for their customers knowing they are backed by innovation and a secure, reliable framework for long term growth. From point of purchase to fulfillment, the process needs to be seamless, transparent and consistent to prevent friction & loss of customers in the process.

The Holistic View

“You have to be able to know your customer, you have to be able to see what they bought online, what they bought in store, their past histories, if they want to be able to return without a receipt or buy a gift card”

What Amber is referencing here is the Seamless Customer Experience. For Omnichannel retailers to succeed, they have to empower a genuine relationship with customers. Retail staff have to easily be able to access information about the customers at the POS to understand the specific customer, provide needed support and enable a seamless transaction process. This detailed view needs to be paired with analytics and consistent updates to enable an effective purchasing process. The customers needs, behaviors and orders have to be centrally monitored and accessible to reduce the friction that exists within the purchase process.

Omnichannel Drives Revenue

“Not only have sales increased because of customer experience, they are also not losing sales. They no longer have to send customers to an online location.”

Customers don’t slip through the cracks, customers want the product when they want it… they don’t want to wait until the product is available in store again. The product needs to be readily locatable, need a different size/color/style…. No problem? Having a detailed viewpoint of current inventory across warehouses, store fronts and back rooms is not optional anymore. Retailers need to instantly fulfill the product somehow, taking the purchase at the point of sale and fulfilling the order in a manner that is convenient for customers. This customer centric approach to retail is crucial for retailers to stay competitive, these processes need to be focused on the needs of consumers but supported by an extensive integration ecosystem that drives functionality and simplicity throughout the purchase process.

Teamwork Commerce + ShippyPro

Teamwork Commerce is the brain for retailers, while the solution has a wide range of features, it does not resolve every issue for every retailer, legacy systems, existing implementations and niche requirements present challenges for retailers. The need for a wide range of flexible integrations is critical. The addition of ShippyPro into the Teamwork Commerce platform was a natural choice. The solution has been whitelabelled into the Teamwork application for certain clients enabling an efficient fulfillment system, leveraging ShippyPro’s integration network to centralize shipping, easily print labels and monitor shipments at every stage using webhooks. Shippypro is the easiest way to ship, track and return your orders.

Watch the Webinar: ShippyPro + Teamwork Webinar

2020 might be known as the year of online shopping. With expected EOY performance of $4.2 Trillion in global eCommerce sales, the concept of a seamless and limitless shopping experience is increasingly accessible across the world. Today’s peripherals must be as agile as in store point of sale tools to ensure complete flexibility and convenience in the increasingly competitive brick-and-mortar marketplace, enabling an efficient and targeted approach designed to minimize friction within the customer experience. Jammed receipt printers, or label misreads can lead to the loss of valuable seconds in the collection or purchase process, potentially costing sales and valuable customer relationships. But there is a better way, printer hardware can provide a myriad of benefits to retailers in their journey to refine and optimize the customer experience.

Enhancing The POS Experience

Issues at the Point of Sale are the enemy of proficient customer experiences. Loyalty begins the moment after the purchase. The initial experience will be memorable for a customer. The last thing retailers want is to provide poorly printed, illegible and excessively long receipts. While they may seem trivial, receipts play a key part in the customer experience, serving as a memento of the purchase experience, enabling brand marketing, coupon production and customer surveys. The combination of this functionality represents a critical touchpoint for retailers. Building relationships at the point of sale and communicating key messaging before, during and after the purchase with the addition of value added services will encourage customers to continue frequenting the business and engaging with the brand.

Removing Friction

The retail experience is transforming so rapidly, there is a significant risk of products becoming obsolete before they even get out of the box. Retailers across the world are building out unified approaches to retail, leveraging cloud solutions in conjunction with legacy systems to enhance the customer experience. Printers at the POS have to easily fit into this complex ecosystem and provide value, flexibility and functionality.

Retailers need additional flexibility, whether at a traditional checkout, or a mobile POS (mPOS), having a receipt printer that can move with the sale allows retail staff to do what they do best, build relationships and communicate with customers wherever they are needed. Speed is also key at the point of sale. In the mobile example mentioned, being able to quickly produce a physical receipt and move on to assist the next customer is key. High speed printers help to reduce post sale wait times and allow staff to quickly pivot to the next sale.

A Seamless Solution: Teamwork Commerce + Epson

Teamwork Commerce partner Epson understands this. The company’s mobile-friendly receipt printers pair perfectly with the TWC mPOS software allowing seamless & painless sales across the store enabling your business to serve customers whether they buy online, pick-up in store, use curbside pickup or home delivery.

Teamwork Commerce uses the Epson TM-m30 POS receipt printer at the point of sale, allowing retail staff to have complete flexibility. Epson’s compact printer features modular casing, enabling flexibility between top-load or front-load configuration ,and offers the advantages of integration with mobile POS environments, intuitive functionality and advanced connectivity.

The joint solution ensures a seamless operating experience and mitigation of friction throughout the retail operation process. Together, we provide merchants with the assurance to get the most out of their mobile POS systems delivering a seamless experience at every sales channel and continue driving the strength of mPOS while mobile expansion in retail continues to grow.

See how Teamwork Commerce + Epson can empower your brand to create a more engaging, customer friendly and efficient experience across retail channels.
https://teamworkcommerce.com/demo-request

Apple has been behind some significant consumer trends – MP3 players, smartphones and tablets – and it may be the company to drive the use of mobile payments in retail stores. Traditional point-of-sale systems are still in use at retailers, but they are no longer the only way to accept payments. An iPad POS enables employees to complete transactions anywhere in the store, improving efficiency and keeping shoppers happy with shorter transaction times and fewer minutes spent waiting in line .

The Financial Brand’s Jim Marous recently detailed the company’s much buzzed about Apple Pay, the company’s near field communication application that has “the unique ability to change consumer behavior on a large scale.” This app enables users to use their iPhones to make payments at more than 200,000 U.S. locations.

Any mobile application is all for naught, though, if it is not secure. Shoppers are unlikely to trust a retailer with their personal information again if their payment data is stolen or exposed at any point during the relationship.

Fortunately, Marous indicated security is one of Apple Pay’s strong points, which should go a long way toward alleviating user fears.

If Apple Pay takes off, it will likely contribute to a healthier mobile payments market. As it stands, very few consumers pay for goods using their smartphones and tablets. Marous cited a BI Intelligence report as backing up this point. The study predicted mobile payments will improve markedly in the next five years, yet they will still only account for 5 percent of retail sales by 2018.
Tablets and smartphones are a boon to all sorts of tasks, making checkouts easier for consumers and more efficient for retailers. Apple has changed various markets in the past and it wouldn’t be surprising if it were the company to spur the mobile payments space in the future.

Traditional point-of-sale systems still have a place in the retail industry, but they are no longer the de facto option for accepting consumer payments. Mobile devices such as tablets have taken the market by storm, delivering similar functionality to stationary PCs with capabilities more suited to today’s fast-paced shopper mentality. Businesses with a mobile POS can empower sales representatives, enabling employees to serve customers anywhere in the store.

An IHL Group study indicated global POS hardware shipments experienced healthy growth during the first half of 2014, VSR magazine reported.

Greg Buzek, president of IHL Group, said enterprise retailers are experiencing “tremendous” changes from technology.

Mobile POS fastest-growing retail sector since Internet

A separate IHL Group study noted the North American mobile POS retail market is currently worth nearly $8 billion. The firm asserted mobile POS is the fastest-moving development to influence the retail segment since businesses integrated Internet into their stores. Apple is perhaps the biggest reason behind this development, thanks to its popular iPad device.

Much like how Apple started the smartphone craze by introducing the iPhone in 2007, the tech giant started a similar trend some years later with the iPad. The iPad offers touchscreen functionality that makes Web browsing, typing and operating system navigation possible in a slim package that is easy to carry around a retail store.

An iPad POS is a great way for replacing or augmenting current POS systems with more agile tools. Businesses that embrace these solutions will have an opportunity to achieve operational flexibility, employee productivity and, importantly, customer service. The main problem with older POS infrastructure is that consumers are required to wait in designated lines to purchase items. This causes certain areas of a store to become crowded and, if someone is returning a product or has a question that requires further assistance, this only leads to added frustration among the people waiting for their turn.

A mobile POS is an effective way of relieving the burden from sale reps working at the checkout line. Now, employees walking around the store with an iPad in hand can help shoppers purchase goods without waiting.

Apple’s product is driving retail experience

Consumers may have been the ones most responsible for adopting the iPad in droves when it first launched, but businesses are also jumping on this bandwagon and will continue to do so in the years to come. IHL Group explained retailers are eager to achieve the same experience throughout the entire organization – a capability also leading them to implement a mobile POS.

Future shipments of tablets, especially the iPad, will experience double-digit growth, with many of these devices used for POS capabilities, IHL Group predicted.

Churn is the enemy of effective marketing, dissolving email deliverability and ultimately making it more challenging to connect with customers. Bounce rates can be heavily impactful on deliverability, putting stains on your delivery IP. On average marketers lose around 30% of their email database to attrition annually, or around 2.5% per month in the retail industry. A recent mailchimp study found that even non-responding subscribers are more likely to purchase more often. Customers become familiar with the brand, they understand your products, your culture and your messaging, which makes your sales process much simpler.

How to minimize email list churn?

Build Your Own Lists

Email lists are an asset and must be protected. Purchasing lists can ruin campaign deliverability, they often include many undeliverable emails or inactive addresses.

Transparent Opt-ins

Subscribers should be added voluntarily, ask your customers for consent and ensure they understand what they are signing up for. This will help you to avoid unsubscribes down the line.

Contact Subscribers ASAP

Once your subscribers are added to your list, reach out to them straight away. Your customers will want to know what the list is for and what your business is about, a simple welcome email can help.

Track Interaction

If your messages are not getting opened, or clicked this is a clear warning sign. Either your subscribers are not interested, or the contact information you have is not valid. Monitor bounce rate & opens closely.

Use Email Change of Address

You can reconnect with inactive subscribers and those with incorrect contact information, all while improving campaign deliverability and protecting your I.P.

How Email Change Of Address Can Help

Email change of address is an efficient and effective way to grow your list without spending a lot. It can be around 50% cheaper than acquiring new email addresses. The added benefit is reconnecting with list subscribers you have lost due to attrition. Cleaning the list, will usually lead to increased ROI and improved campaign interaction. These subscribers likely already have a proficient understanding of your business, products and services, making them far more receptive to your messaging. Keeping existing customers happy is also critical for any business, leaving those that have joined membership, loyalty or subscription programs in the dark can often lead to alienation, disappointment or disengagement with the brand.

As an example, a leading pet supply retailer leveraged ECOA service to refresh their email list, they were able to gain a 25% increase in sales by reconnecting with these members. They discovered that 40% of the email records were unreachable, many users had since deleted, or changed their email addresses, incorrectly entered their email address, or stopped activity.

Effectively making these customers unreachable, resulting in very high bounce rates in email campaigns. Stemming deliverability in other campaigns and causing inbox placement to suffer. (Got a lot of emails going to junk/other, this is probably why). Using the ECOA tool this company was able to update 30,000 customers, cleaning inactive, bounced and invalid emails. Resulting in, improved total deliverability, and increasing the ability of the company to reach interested customers that have been left in the dark.

Teamwork partner, FreshAddress, takes a unique approach to refreshing the email list; prioritizing list hygiene and accurate data sets. Identifying potential matches, requesting permission and eventually replacing the email in the database. New matches then go through a final hygiene process, deliverability check and active status.

Are you interested in taking a look at an email acquisition process that’s at least 50% cheaper than your current spend and drives higher ROI? Email: [email protected]