According to the French magazine Le Monde, in 2019, online purchases exceeded 100 billion euros. Regarding the number of online buyers, it increased by more than 23% in a year, only in France. With more than a third of the world’s population in lockdown, the rate of online purchases is likely to increase at the expense of brick and mortar stores.
How to make customers want to come to the store again despite the rules of social distancing?
According to a Zebra Technologies study from the end of 2018, 42% of retail store associates expressed frustration at their inability to meet clients’ needs due to excessive pressure to complete other tasks. Moreover, 83% of point-of-sales managers and 74% of associates estimate that having digital terminals might be useful for them and could improve the customer journey.
With the Covid 19 crisis, in some stores it is now, for hygienic reasons, forbidden to try clothes on. However, we might wonder what is the point for a client to come to our store if he can’t try its clothes on? The best could be to stay at home and buy online… It is to face this way of thinking that interactive terminals are setting up.
Thanks to those, a customer could continue to come to the store, have the possibility to try its clothes on virtually and avoid the contamination at the same time. Regarding the seller, he will be able to help, advise and keep a real social link with its client. Moreover, on those terminals, the client could have direct access to the stock of the product is looking for. This will increase its purchasing experience and put less pressure on the seller who will continue to advise other potential buyers.
Which solution is the most adapted?
It already exists stores that provides the possibility for customers to virtually try clothes without going to the fitting rooms. It is done thanks to a tablet or an interactive terminal available within the store. The customer choose a product and thanks to the camera inside the terminal, he can see himself wearing its article. Also, touch terminals could be helpful in cinemas, theaters or museums to book tickets or see the next screenings. It might also be useful in libraries, to check the availability of a book and rent it for example. What about the catering? Digital terminals, such as tablets, could be seen as useful. Indeed, a customer will be able to see the menu and order instantly on the screen.
Due to the pandemic that had a huge impact, it is necessary to reconsider the future of our stores. In this article, we are not talking about replacing humans and deleting social contact but to help in store sales. To set up those terminals, it will be necessary to use mobile device management solutions to secure them. They allow a simple access to one or a small set of applications: the kiosk mode is the most adapted to those screens. Indeed, MDM softwares enable, in particular for point-of-sales, remotely secure and manage different terminals.
TinyMDM is the first French software for professional mobile device management specialized in Android and Android EMM partner. Its aim is to offer an easy-to-use and affordable mobile device management solution regarding the human and financial investment. TinyMDM offers three different management solutions: BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), the Fully managed and the Kiosk mode. The last one is the most adapted to the current and future needs of retail stores. It contains the possibility for a company to choose the applications that will be used in the stores and to hide inappropriate applications. It also gives the possibility to customize the screen or to set a sleep mode delay for example.