Question

Today’s retailers, like cell phone companies and satellite providers, must have an active online presence, or they will be “left in the dust.” As such, stores with a physical presence must strive to provide unique, personalized service that provides customers with the ability to physically interact with products and trained sales staff. Many customers would prefer to be educated by a trained sales professional before they make a specific buying decision. Unfortunately, though, customers could merely listen to a sales person’s presentation and then purchase their product online. To combat this trend, physical stores could offer products at a discount if purchased from the store within a specific time frame. The store could also offer deeply discounted “demo items” that are only considered “demo” because the product was opened during a demonstration to the customer. Physical stores could also offer a rewards program for purchases made exclusively through their physical store location.

What do you think?

Answer 1

The presence of e-commerce has made it difficult for retail stores to compete with because the online purchase is more benefited to the customers. To attract the customers in the physical store also need strategic orientation, therefore Samsung mobile came up with the idea of experience economy that forced Apple to develop the stores to provide experience to the customers while purchasing the products. Loyalty programs, more discounts on purchase in the stipulated time period, and exchange offers can attract the customers to purchase the products from retail stores. But at the same time, the retail stores should also work to provide the extraordinary experience to the customers and should treat them as guests to increase customer traffic in the stores. For this, the stores can provide training to the sales professionals to convert potential customers to loyal customers.