5 ways retailers are innovating with beacon technology

Beacon technology is set to disrupt the retail industry in the near future by connecting businesses with in-store shoppers in innovative new ways. Enabling precision location indoors, beacons allow retailers to detect the movements of customers and items, to deliver messages through apps or across wi-fi networks and to generate rich data that would otherwise be difficult to capture.

Progressive brick-and-mortar retailers are embracing beacon technology to understand their customers and increase sales. In the first of a two part series on proximity technology in retail, we’ll look at five real-world examples of the shift to beacons.

Product placement

Adagio teas stores in the US used beacons to optimize the choice and position of high-margin items on display in-store. A Quuppa indoor positioning system detected the movement of ‘tagged’ items on the shop floor. By understanding where tagged items were more likely to be picked up by customers, Adagio were able to identify the best placements. This led to a 12% increase in sales of high-margin products.

Click and collect

Woolworths in Australia wanted to enhance the customer experience for their click and collect service. Using a combination of beacons and geo-fencing (virtual boundary defined by GPS), they were able to identify ‘click and collect’ customers as they entered the store. By the time the customer arrived at the collection point, their package was ready for collection. Over a three month trial, collection service times were reduced by 50%.

Connecting offline and online shopping

Fashion brand Esprit implemented a proximity campaign in Austria, which detected customers entering the store who had the Esprit app installed on their phones. Esprit connected with these customers to offer services, for example scan and shop - a customer can order online sizes of a clothing piece that are not available in the store. Esprit were also able to reinvigorate abandoned online shopping carts, by alerting the customer that they could look at that product while in-store.

Building product awareness

Dell partnered with Shopadvisor to build awareness of its Alienware and Pandora product lines. Shopadvisor provided a proximity mobile ad campaign to drive foot traffic into selected locations where Dell’s new products were on sale. An in-store foot traffic study provided additional insight into the shopper audience. The result was that people who saw the ad campaign were 42% more likely to visit a store than those who did not.

In-store navigation

Taubaum Shopping malls in the US implemented an app that uses beacons to allow visitors to access indoor location based services including voice and turn-by-turn real-time indoor navigation. The solution also includes a  “Save my Parking Spot” function.

There are a number of ways the retail industry can benefit using technology to improve not just their operations but, the overall customer experience. If you would like to find out more how technology can help your retail business contact our team today.