07 November 2017 Pop-up shop shows off in-store personalization tech

Stephanie Pandolph, Business Insider Intelligence  | November 06, 2017

Retail marketing company Velocity Worldwide displayed its multichannel marketing platform, Darius For Retail, at a pop-up shop hosted by ComQi, a customer engagement technology company, last week. The platform builds out customer profiles for retailers by working with existing customer relationship management systems. It can then solicit feedback from customers, using an opt-in prompt (through promotional offerings in emails or SMS messages), which allows it to track in-store shopping patterns and customer feedback from surveys and social media.

The platform can help stores boost foot traffic and in-store sales.

• Once customers connect to Wi-Fi in these areas, retailers can send notifications to draw them into their stores — such as sending a push notification for discounted coffee in a book shop, for example. This could be a huge benefit to retailers located in areas where customers often use Wi-Fi, like airports or train stations.

• Additionally, retailers can use Wi-Fi and beacon sensors to send customers personalized offers in-store. Wi-Fi is used to notify the platform that a customer has entered the store, and sensors enable it to track their location via their phone. Then, when a customer approaches a touchscreen, or other in-store technology, the platform can display personalized product information based on their profile data. Beacon technology can also be used to send promotional offers — if a customer picks up a shoe with beacon technology on it more than once, for example, the retailer can send them a discount to persuade them to purchase the shoe.
  

Multichannel marketing platforms, such as Darius For Retail, may be a powerful tool to bridge the online and offline gap, which could help retailers compete against Amazon.

The platform gathers information from potential customers by asking people if they want to opt-in when they connect to Wi-Fi. This has proven effective — Enda McShane, CEO of Velocity Worldwide, said the company has gotten more than 140,000 data sets from a mall in Dublin using this method. This widespread access to data could rival Amazon’s, possibly enabling retailers to provide the level of personalization that Amazon is known for. This may help them draw customers back into stores and fend off competition from the e-commerce giant.