Retailers are Improving Customer Retention with Location-Based Personalized Shopping. They Still Need Better Indoor GPS.

Retaining an existing customer is supposed to be a whole lot cheaper than attracting a new one. According to research, even a 5% rise in customer retention rates can boost profits drastically. But with shoppers constantly moving from store to store, this is easier said than done. One way sellers can attract customers is through location-based personalized shopping experiences.

There are a number of ways to do this. Stores can entice opt-in customers by sending push notifications and email alerts to them when they are nearby. They can also send cross-channel alerts, notifying interested customers that a product they’ve been viewing online is in stock at an outlet nearby. Brands can even make use of in-store proximity marketing, which analyses a buyer’s location data inside the store to offer deals on the most relevant items.

Mickey Balter, founder of indoor positioning company Oriient, explains why location-based personalized shopping and an ecosystem of offers are an improvement over traditional methods of marketing, and why indoor GPS is essential for fully maximizing this strategy.

Mickey’s Thoughts

“Retailers today are giving shoppers a more personalized experience using in-store location-based proximity marketing. Traditional marketing methods bombard shoppers with a myriad of paper-based promotions, causing ad blindness. In-store proximity marketing, in contrast, micro-targets shoppers based on their precise current location in the store. This lets retailers promote the most relevant product or service, based on immediate purchase intent, as well as previous in-store and online shopping preferences and habits. By making the call to action immediate, grab the product while in sight and within a hands reach, retailers can quadruple in-store marketing conversion.

The main challenge here is that this requires an indoor positioning solution. Indoor GPS. There are multiple technologies on the market that retailers can choose from. Classical systems are either wifi-based or beacon-based. More recently, geomagnetic based solutions are capturing the space by offering the combination of accuracy, with the scalability that only a software only solution can offer. All of these solutions integrate seamlessly into retailers’ own apps, leveraging the existing user base for those applications.”