1. Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) – Provide informative content
The purchasing process usually starts outside the store. The potential customer becomes interested through an advertisement, commercial or recommendation from an acquaintance and starts his search for more information. This is increasingly happening online: the ' Zero Moment of Truth '. Here a company must shine and the customer must be convincingly seduced to consider the product. If this does not happen, the customer will already drop out here. In more than a third of the cases, they go directly to the website of the manufacturer. As I described above, people currently very often reach for their smartphone or tablet first.
Recent Canadian research has shown that a distinctive website actually has a positive effect on the chance that the customer will buy a product. This distinction is largely determined by the trust that the website visitor gets that the product meets his needs. And this trust is largely determined by the information value of the content offered. Visitors drop out when there is promotional talk. After the visitor has been convinced, it is important to offer a clear call-to-action, so that the customer is tempted to go to an (online) store to make a purchase. The customer can then choose where he prefers to buy the product.
Audi in the Netherlands and Dove Men Care in the United States have understood this well by offering a mobile-first product experience, including video content and integration with social media platforms. This gives the customer almost instant access to the content that matters at ZMOT – the product content – and entices the customer to look further.
2. The smartphone as a personal expert in the store
The internet is also starting to gain a foothold in the store. Research by Motorola shows that 84% of consumers use their mobile phone in the store to support the purchasing process, for example to obtain more information about a product. The same research shows that 73% of people even prefer to use their smartphone to find additional product information than to ask an employee. In many cases, this appears to be because people think they can find better information themselves than the employee can provide. Retailers are starting to respond to this by offering additional content, often via an app. The American electronics chain Best Buy was one of the first parties to experiment with this. Shop visitors can scan a QR code at the product, which allows them to obtain switzerland phone data additional product information, reviews and information about availability via their smartphone.
QR display at American electronics chain Best Buy
However, examples like these are certainly not commonplace at the moment. Precisely because of the lack of information that the retailer offers, many shop visitors will also visit the manufacturer's website. This offers opportunities: here too, a good mobile website can contribute to conversion. Both the manufacturer and the retailer benefit from this.
3. Always in stock thanks to the smartphone
If the customer has been able to find all the information, it is annoying to notice that the chosen store does not have (the desired version of) the product in stock. This is even the biggest dissatisfier of shop visitors. More than half of all lost sales are caused by this. This is especially bad news for the retailer, because in many cases the customer then goes to a competitor. But it is also bad news for the manufacturer, because a second study by Motorola shows that in almost half of the cases the product in question is no longer purchased at all.
Alert retailers respond to this by referring the customer to another branch, where (the desired version of) the product is in stock; slightly more than half of potential customers would accept this. An even larger share, more than two-thirds of people, would still make the purchase if the retailer had offered to have the product delivered to their home as soon as it was back in stock.
But even in this situation, many people will grab their smartphone to find out for themselves where the product is available. This is the moment that the manufacturer can add value to the sales process by offering alternatives. This could also be the competitor of the retailer where the customer is at that moment. Preferably, this is integrated with a stock indication, so that the customer knows for sure that the product is in stock at his (online) store.
Samsung (in the US) has this well under control. If the visitor allows this, the nearest retailer is shown directly via GPS and for each product it can be seen directl.
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