“Technological development as one of the basic human needs will never cease,” say Ahti Leväaho, Marketing Director at Smartcart, and Dr. Anna Bäckström, a professor of social psychology at the University of Helsinki, who will participate in SEMPL Conference (Portorož, 29 and 30 November 2018) where they will take visitors on a journey through changes in consumer behavior in digital commerce.
Only 0.3 to 0.8% of in-store products attract attention of consumers
Although retail sales seem to be moving online, most of the food (80 to 90 percent) is still sold in brick and mortar stores. At that, 75 percent of the final purchasing decisions are made during the purchase at the store. As Leväaho says, it’s a question of brutal math. “When an average customer visits a hypermarket or a supermarket, their attention is actively attracted by 0.3 to 0.8 percent of all presented products. From products that have attracted their active attention, only 25 to 30 percent will end up in their cart. The challenge for everyday consumer brands is how to cost effectively increase the likelihood of being more visible on the consumers path through the store, and how to communicate with them when they are making the final purchase decision.”
Smart carts boost sales and enable advertisers more intimate relationship with consumer
Smartcart’s smart shopping carts in Finland are already available in about one hundred stores of the country’s largest retail chain, Kesko. Thanks to introduction of smart carts, retailers can easier serve customers and sell more, and the value of the consumer basket of the average buyer increases. Why? “When you meet the basic consumer needs in a simple and fun way, their appetite increases. So you give customers more time to think what else they would like to buy,” adds Ahti.
As smart carts allow two-way communication, the advantage is that advertisers can customize communications to each individual, based on customer’s movement through the store and their shopping list.
One of the greatest opportunities to meet different customer expectations is hidden in stores themselves. Brick and mortar stores are becoming more and more important in the age of technology, but only if marketers and advertisers succeed in establishing appropriate digital links with consumers and make the shopping experience more entertaining, exciting, and different.
