Gift Cards- Smart way to increase your Customers Repeat purchases
Since their inception, gift cards have enjoyed increased sales.For businesses,gift cards are easy to offer due to the minimal overheads cost and overall convenience for the consumers.For customers and the gift card's recipient , they offer a sense of freedom and a simple solution for gifting.Many businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises,have realized the tremendous opportunity gift cards provide ,and offer them to increase revenue,enhance customer acquisition and boost customer repeat purchase and customer loyalty.
Gift Cards benefits all the parties involved
the buyer the recipient and the business.The buyer has completed a convenient
gift purchase with little worry as to whether the recipient will like the
gift,the recipient receives it without concern whether it will fit or not and
the business has a repeat customers and increased its sales.Business also get
an opportunity to capture a new customer when a recipient redeem a gift card to that particular store which
they have never visited before.According to survey report 41% of the survey
respondents said receiving gift cards has prompted them to visit store they
otherwise would not have visited.59% of the respondents said they visited a
store more frequently after receiving a gift cards.With this tremendous opportunity
to capture new customers and gaining repeat visits there is no reason why any
business should not offer gifts cards.
Repeat visits lead to long term
profits.It has been estimated that repeat customers spend on an average 67%
more than the first customers.Any size or type of business can offer gift cards
as it is both affordable and manageable.There is no reason not to offer them
when it is a simplest way to encourage
repeat purchase in turn generating additional revenue,increase customer loyalty
and improve customer acquisition. With the popularity of gift cards program
rapidly growing,soon enough,consumers will start to expect them, even from
small and medium sized businesses.It’s 2015, and businesses must get on board
in order to stay in the game.
Mcarrots provides a complete suite of
services that helps the brand to engage and grow which in turn helps in
fulfilling the last needs of customers.
All about OmniChannel and their Benefits
In simple terms, "Omni" means universal or all and obviously you would be knowing the meaning of “Channel”. Now, coming to the point of why this term “OmniChannel” is really important to retail business especially in today’s world which is filled with tough competition.
In 1990s, retail was at the level of “brick and mortar stores” or "catalog sales" which would happen by either through mailing or phone. Pioneers such as Sears & Roebuck and L.L. Bean started working on the model of catalog as early as 1800s. In today’s world, we are using multiple channels to sell for example e-commerce, m-commerce, social media, advertisements in television, newspaper, banners and many more but what is result of doing all these activities, have they been yielding desired results ?
OmniChannel is all about your experience, perceiving and understanding all things. It provides the retail brands the data and experience, which gives them the advantage to create processes and planning for their future experience. Customer experience can be termed as “Life" because there is no end to it and has to go on forever. Everyone tries to knock down their minuses and simultaneously increase more positives. Getting constant and same experience about a product or service has to be customised for each brand or format. You can call this as new way of thinking or marketing that is yet to be explored.
Most of the customers end up doing 5 steps in their "from desire to purchase" journey such are awareness, desire, research, comparison and purchase. I am sure, you would have gone through all the above mentioned steps while purchasing a product or service for your own or company. All the data of above mentioned activities of the customer is in fragmented form in online and offline and with few systems or processes in place, you be able to gather these data.
When a brand thinks about customer experience, it has to be OmniChannel present and today there aren’t many brands around us who failed to adopt this model but still try to increase their sales or revenue. Will you believe, if we said that “WalMart” has failed miserably in South Korea just because they couldn’t differentiate American and South Korean markets which includes shelf height and presentation of fresh fish at their 16 stores which was later sold off in 2006. Same scenarios do continue in other brands as well. After persevering through the years when it seemed "Starbucks" could do no wrong had to shut shop in Israel in the year 2003 which is just 2 years from opening, due to heavy competition.
When a brand can understand OmniChannel data and their customers are the one’s who succeed in large. A new perspective for the customer is born with their experience and that tends to bend them towards the brand more often than normally. Now, becoming a omniscient isn’t difficult when you have us around. MCarrots solutions have always helped brands to achieve their Omniscient goals. We provide "technology" as a "service" which helps you to build the base of customers who are inclined towards your brand.
All you have to do is, write to us at sales@mcarrots.com or ashwin@mcarrots.com to get connected with us.
SMAC your customers to improve retailing
Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud with the
popular acronym SMAC is the next big thing that can help business achieve their
goals by optimizing costs. The value that each area adds to the business is
multiplied when combined into a single offering making it a natural and more
potent solution.
Social media gives businesses a way to reach a larger audience
quickly and efficiently. It also helps to create buzz in a short period of
time.
Mobile is driving the
online business today. Many in fact are moving from web based business model to
only mobile models which speaks volume
about the future of e-business.
Visual Analytics is helping business to find value in the
operations as they are now able to analyze customer activities through social
media analytics, web analytics, big data and predictive analysis.
In fact all the above services are delivered on cloud that
helps companies reach economy of scale and makes it affordable and
efficient to scale their operations in
future. Overall, SMAC is something which managers and entrepreneurs are banking
on to bring transformation in their business practices.
Mcarrots is one of the
digital platforms for retailers that help brand engage and grow through SMAC both online and offline
For more information click here
For more information click here
Omni-channel decoded-Meeting the retailer expectations
Retail today is
shifting from a single channel environment to a multichannel platform. Customer
Journey is also not linear as in early days. Customer is pervasive and
omnipresent.
She is connected through multiple channels
with her ecosystem including the business entities she purchases from like retail stores and
e-commerce sites.
She may be inside a store but searching an
item on her mobile. She may be sitting in a coffee shop and reviewing an item
on social media and ultimately may order reaching back home on the company
website. In the process she may benefit from coupons and reward points that may
help her get discounts on her buy.
Today's omni-channel environment requires a
holistic approach to ensure that every point of contact delivers a high level
of engagement to the customer and creates an enduring experience.
Mcarrots
is one of the solutions in the market that help merchant create an omni-channel
relationship with the customer by providing tools like CRM, Mobile apps, social
connect and m-commerce platform that makes user experience truly seamless. It
has an integrated analytic to dig deeper into customer journey and help
retailers customize their offerings and campaign to suit the situation.M-commerce- Enhancing omni-channel customer experience
Technology has been changing at a phenomenal speed.Few years ago internet was an enigma, just around
the corner we were using e- commerce sites for purchasing and today the whole
world has converged in our hand with a small device called Smart Phone.
Amazon,Snap deal and flip kart's 60% traffic comes from mobile.That means most people today prefer mobile
for searching ,reviewing and even buying products of their choice.
Mobile
Commerce is another channel for retail that cannot be ignored today. It serves
immense power to customer to choose, review and buy a products from a location
of their choice. For a retailers with a physical store it can also help them to
develop an Omni channel strategy.
A customer
can search an item online, review it and than look for the local store where
they can buy. Possibly if they are comfortable they can go to the mobile store
and order the items there itself through the company mobile application. This
confluence of SOCIAL, LOCAL AND MOBILE
popularly referred to as SoLoMo is
changing the buying behavior of customer.
Mcarrots with solutions like social
bridge, m-commerce application helps to integrate the offline with the online
stores to ensure speedy, easy and convenient shopping experience
How To Build Customer Loyalty – Trends For Retailers
Retailers today face dual
pressure of not only growing their business but also ensuring they do not loose
profit margins. Major focus area has been retaining customers, acquiring new
customers, understanding customer buying behavior, engaging customer to make
them feel that they are part of the store and increase their frequency of
visits.
In past before the technology
boom people use to maintain personal relationship with their customers. They
used to know each person by name and preference. This relationship was one of
the corner stone of the retailer’s success.
With time, retailers started to
depend more on technology than personal approach and interaction reached to its
minimum level leading to customer becoming more of a reluctant buyer than a
committed one. There was disconnecting. Since retailers also grew and
expanding, they were limited by time and geography to interact personally with
every customer on regular basis and were badly looking for some solution that
can help them bridge the gap again.
Customer loyalty is the new
buzzword in the market. Basic form of loyalty comes in discount offers, point
accumulation, and redemption form, but advanced loyalty program includes Gift
cards, vouchers and promo coupons on multiple platform and sites. It offers an
integrated solution with Omni-channel availability of benefits to customers.
Loyalty integrated with digital platform and automated customer relationship
management techniques could be one of the most powerful tools to reach out to
the beleaguered customers today.
Loyalty solutions are the best
possible replication of the old relationship building technique. It is very
effective when used pragmatically and in a planned manner to get the best
results.
Retailers can use SMS and email
messaging system to regularly update their customers about new arrivals in the
store. The message can also be personalized through predictive analysis of
customer buying behaviour in regards to price points, product and categories.
In other ways CRM tools can also serve them reach out to their customers on
important days like anniversary, birthday, festivals and other important days.
This can make the customer feel personalized and important and helps in
enhancing the relationship with the retailer.
Further retailers can also
leverage the social platform to engage and improve the buying decision of their
customers by providing them timely information, offers, benefits and unbiased
reviews of new arrivals and selections. This can add lots of goodwill and
positive buzz about them.
They can also integrate their
loyalty program with mobile to leverage the full benefit of it by bringing
customers on mobile apps platform, rewarding mobile engagements, providing
customized value added services like payment gateway, promotional offers at
real time, coupon redemption and store level interaction on the move.
With Intelligent, insights into
their customers’ persona and buying behaviour through analytical reports and
dashboards retailers can once again take their relationship with their customer
to older times when the storeowner provided a personal touch to the
relationship and take their business to new heights.
How to build customer loyalty – trends for retailers
Retailers today faces dual
pressure of not only growing their business but also ensuring they do not lose
profit margins. Major focus area has been retaining customers, acquiring new
customers, understanding customer buying behaviour, engaging customer to make
them feel that they are part of the store and increase their frequency of
visits.
In past before the technology
boom people use to maintain personal relationship with their customers. They
used to know each and every person by name and preference. This relationship
was one of the corner stone of the retailer’s success.
With time, retailers started to
depend more on technology than personal approach and interaction reached to its
minimum level leading to customer becoming more of a reluctant buyer than a
committed one. There was disconnect. Since retailers also grew and expanding,
they were limited by time and geography to interact personally with every
customer on regular basis and were badly looking for some solution that can
help them bridge the gap again.
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