Tech That Can Add Real Ambience to Your Retail Store

The average store is dealing with a heavily changed landscape, and a lot of retail spaces have had trouble adapting to it. A lot of stores have begun to notice that the solution could lie somewhere in the technology they use. Tech can be better for a lot more than just improving the marketing of your store, it can enhance the store experience, as well. Here, we’re going to look at some examples of retail technology you could implement to improve your store experience.

An app to explore and order before visiting the store

A lot more stores have been working with mobile app developers to create a digital experience that can enhance and heighten the in-store experience, as well. For instance, you can create an app that allows your customers to browse your wares before they enter the store and even make orders online so that they can easily come in and pick up their goods when they’re ready, rather than having to spend more time than they want to in there. Other apps can allow customers to do things like get more information on the products that they’re looking at while in the store and even make recommendations based on the things they’re checking out and past buying history.

Digital displays are the rage

Another growing trend in retail spaces is the use of digital technology as decor. Instead of just using static imagery that you can place throughout the store and hang on the walls, you can create moving and breathing visual landscapes that can create a much more immersive experience. Teams like LPTV can help set businesses up with the right kind of TV displays to fit their spaces. What kind of content that you show is up to you, whether it’s content that you create or licensed content that you can use to better represent the brand and emotions that you’re trying to create with your store. It also creates a much more modern-looking retail space that customers will believe is keeping up with the trends and the standards of the time.

The right scent for the job

If you want to create a truly powerful ambiance in your retail space, then you have to look beyond what visuals alone, can offer. Playing music through your store is one example of how you can do this, but more high-end stores are starting to realize the power of smell, as well. The sense of smell is one that’s most deeply connected to visceral parts of the human experience, including memory and emotion. To that end, finding the right scent to either make visitors more reminiscent of certain places or experiences or simply to create a more relaxing or engaging experience with the help of scent diffusers like Aromacent can have real benefits.

Shaping the experience to the customer

Data is becoming one of the most powerful forces in the retail world, and this doesn’t count for the digital world, either. A lot of stores are paying attention to customer shopping habits through things like loyalty cards and experiential retailing is a way of capitalizing on those habits. For instance, one way that you can use customer data is to have sales assistants who are able to provide personalized shopping experiences, making recommendations based on the preferences of the shopper as gleaned from these apps. Some experiential shopping techniques even try to route customers through stores in a way that makes them more likely to take notice of products that are more likely to appeal to them even without explicitly recommending them.

Adjusting reality to suit the store

Virtual reality is still coming along, and its uses in retail stores are limited, at the moment. However, augmented reality has already proven successful in a range of stores. Some AR apps allow stores to give customers a better idea of how their products will work for them without having to buy or even try them on. Some apps are allowing customers to skip the dressing room experience by using AR to show them how certain outfits might look on them in the mirror. Other home decor stores are going even further, allowing customers to see how furniture might fit within their homes and in specific spaces.

Is self-service for you?

One technology that has been becoming increasingly popular as time goes on is self-service. A lot of customers enjoy the convenience of being able to check themselves out of stores and, of course, it could reduce the need for your staff to constantly man the checkouts, allowing you to better use them to maintain the store and improve customer service in other ways. However, whether or not self-checkouts will work in your store may well depend on the types of products that you’re selling. For instance, they may not work as well in stores that have to security tag every product as you will still want staff members to be there to manually remove the tags on each product scanned, at which point they may as well be carrying out the checkout service for customers anyway.

Better managing your workforce

Tools that allow you to more easily schedule and manage your team, such as workforce management software, might not directly impact the shopping experience. However, they will certainly have a ripple effect. Your team is responsible for every angle of customer service, after all. A better way to keep customers happy is to keep your team happy so that they can provide the level of personal service that your customers should expect. To that end, customer management software that allows for more transparent scheduling, task allocation, and timesheet recording can solve many of the problems of a poorly managed workforce, thus making them happier and more likely to treat customers with the respect and courtesy that they should.

If you’re not willing to enhance the experience of your store, then you had better ensure that its ambiance and experience are enough to stand out on their own. Otherwise, you could have trouble keeping the customers that you currently have and even more trouble attracting new ones.