(Newswire.net — July 29, 2020) —
5 Ways to Make Your Business Ready for Post-Covid Digital Era
The coronavirus pandemic has drastically changed our lives. It ruined almost everything, from usual daily practices to the way we plan our vacation. Of course, shopping is not an exception. Consumer behavior has gone through radical changes in recent weeks, and we still have no clue what to expect in the turbulent future.
A mix of widely spread social distancing regulations and economies in crisis has made people across the globe to reconsider their shopping preferences and adapt their personal experiences to the new reality. Online shopping opportunities as well as shipping services aren’t something new to the most of us. However, because of the coronavirus reality, the demand for these options has gone through the roof.
But what will happen to shopping in the stores? This is on the verge of a paradigm shift. Tumultuous times are coming, so it is extremely important to catch even the tiniest nuances today as they transform into trends tomorrow.
Living in a new reality means you have to deal with new challenges. How to figure out what exactly you should do right now to save your business? What differs your customers the way they were six months ago and now? And how have your services changed? The best way to track the new rules of this ever-changing game is to use mystery shopping services. They are aimed to gather information about product quality and service delivery supplied by a retail company.
Another question for business is whether this new behavior will stay with us or disappear. For thousands of people, visiting the stores, for example, in a shopping mall, is something outdated. What should retailers do to bring the shoppers back? After consumers realized that virtual channels were more comfortable to use, it would be incredibly difficult to lure them back to traditional stores again.
Unsurprisingly, shifting your target from traditional stores to exclusively digital channels is easier said than done. Moreover, there’s probably no need to do that. Retail companies should keep the balance between rapidly growing but unstable demand and unpredictable transformations in the economic sphere. What does it mean in practice? Here are several things to bear in mind when it comes to the challenges in retail after Covid-19.
5 ways to make your company ready to the new reality
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is absolutely true even now amid the pandemic. Covid-19 gives the retail industry a unique chance to die and reborn like a phoenix. Although this ‘revitalization’ process is gut-wrenching, it is inevitable. To make it less painful, it is vitally important to monitor the following aspects.
Marketing
We start with marketing as it is a catalyst for growth and development of every firm. Now its role becomes even more crucial. The main task of marketing after Covid-19 is to provide a flawless back-to-back customer experience. That is when automation technologies and AI come to help. But even the most innovative technology won’t work if you don’t understand your customers. A well-designed digital marketing research should be the first and fundamental part of a successful e-commerce company.
If you plan to conduct marketing research on your own, using a decent sample size calculator will be particularly helpful. Without defining the sample size, you won’t get statistically accurate results.
Digital channels
Digital in all forms will be an essential component of every brand’s identity. It is vital to attract potential customers and offer them not only your products or services but also values. To get a satisfactory outcome, digital interactive services should be adjusted to defeat new challenges. All parts of your business should work hard to offer easy-to-navigate ordering and delivering processes via every digital channel. Sometimes it is essential to engage a good market research company, that will help to provide top-notch virtual product journeys for a wide range of your products or services.
Stores
Don’t worry, the stores are functioning, but they are required to be transformed into something more than just shops. Due to the Covid-19 risks, the stores will operate in two different ways:
- Retail stores should be included to the digital system. These locations will serve as collecting points for deliveries.
- The stores should make everything effort to ensure compliance with safety instructions. For example, this can be cameras to monitor the number of people inside the store. Controlling customer flows has probably become the most urgent problem to solve nowadays.
And last but not least, retail audits can’t wait for better times as it is imperative to monitor your brand’s health.
Supply chain
The role of logistics as well as delivery services is hard to overestimate during this period. Retailers have no choice but to meet the increased demand, plus there is no room for mistake when we are talking about shipping. Can your supply chain survive transferring to online?
Products
Does your assortment meet your customer expectations? Maybe you should add something or remove the stuff that isn’t relevant right now? Omnichannel merchandising raises the necessity to evaluate product availability via different channels.
A multi-sourced supplier network along with comprehensive analytics will help companies to develop a new perspective on customer needs, adjust assortment to the clients, and improve communication strategies through various virtual channels.