Tag Archives: high street

News

New Skills New Start for entrepreneurs on Ceredigion busines journey

AN INNOVATIVE trade and training project will support and guide entrepreneurs and start-ups as they begin their business journey.

New Skills New Start is a UK Government initiative funded via the UK Community Renewal Fund, led by Ceredigion Council, and delivered by Antur Cymru Enterprise.

Participants will be able to test their ideas, products and processes in the county’s town centres and advisers will be on hand to deliver guidance via workshops, one-to-one sessions, and mentoring.

The pilot scheme runs until July and is also focused on breathing life into Ceredigion’s high streets and retail areas, uniting potential and regeneration.

Project Manager Julie Morgan says Antur Cymru is committed to helping individuals explore self-employment, giving them a launchpad and helping build confidence while gaining pivotal experience in a real-time, real-life environment.

“We are looking forward to working with entrepreneurs and people with ideas they want to develop into businesses, overcoming any barriers or issues they may have and giving them the tools and resources to take that first step,” said Julie.

“The wider project will bring together different elements all centred on business support, and the feedback we’ve had so far has been incredibly positive.

“There is a lot of demand out there and an appetite for innovative ideas that will reinforce a post-Covid recovery in our town centres, and not just in retail, the initiative can and will be applied to multiple sectors.

“From food and drink to arts and crafts, giftware and more, we want to hear from people who are ready to take their business plans to the next level.”

Among the town centres to welcome the programme is Aberystwyth, where a New Skills New Start Trading Space pop-up premises will open on Wednesday February 16.

As well as free training, traders will have access to resources including IT equipment, marketing, branding and finance guidance, and networking contacts.

Bespoke coaching will ensure support is tailored to the sector and needs of the individual, identifying and overcoming any obstacles to success.

“If successful the scheme will be rolled out further, so it is a fantastic opportunity to drive innovation and give local economies a boost,” Julie added.

For more information, visit the website www.anturcymru.org.uk/entrepreneurship/new-skills-new-start or email nsns@anturcymru.org.uk.

E-Commerce, News, Thought Leadership

Last Chance Saloon: Why It’s Now or Never to Capture and Retain Online Retail Customers

Is the writing on the wall for eCommerce? Customers have relied on online retail for 18 months, with repeated lockdowns contributing to an extraordinary spike in growth – online now contributes 36% of retail revenue compared to just 16% pre-pandemic. Yet, while some of this new buying behaviour is likely to stick, online is no longer an emergency destination and retailers have failed to take note.

People are missing the quality of shopping experience. Buying online is mechanical process at best, excruciatingly frustrating at worst. With growing confidence to return to the high street, the decline in online retail is inevitable. The big question is just how steep that decline will be.

As the peak season excitement of Black Friday and Christmas approaches, retailers have one last chance to take a serious look at the online experience and deliver the level of personalisation customers expect. As Russell Loarridge, Director, ReachFive, explains, it’s now or never to capture and retain this new customer base.

Now or Never

Over the past 18 months, online retailers have worked hard to scale up to meet customer demand. Websites are more robust and can handle increasing customer numbers without delays. Logistics processes have been overhauled. From diverse delivery options to an improvement in picking accuracy, fulfilment is more efficient.

But the essential buying experience remains the same – inadequate, perfunctory, exasperating. Why are individuals still compelled to wade through piles of irrelevant items in an increasingly desperate bid to find the required product… only to discover it is out of stock? A jumble sale would be more fun – and more productive. Is it any wonder basket abandonment and product returns continue to spiral?  

Online is no longer an emergency destination – and consumers expect something better. A lot better. Yet retailers have simply accepted the new customer base and assumed it’s here to stay. There has been no attempt to truly discover who these customers are – over and above uninformative email address and telephone number. From gender and size to preferences and hobbies, a good retail experience has always been predicated on providing a product that meets a customer’s needs. Yet, the vast majority of online retailers still have no real understanding of the individual preferences of each customer. 

Failing Channel

The pandemic-induced sales growth is masking the reality: online retail isn’t working. It’s not working for customers who are missing the quality of a personal interaction in store. Moreover, it isn’t working for retailers facing an ever escalating cost of sale. From the logistics disruption due to both inbound shipping delays and a critical lack of HGV drivers, as well as an escalating cost of sale with labour, fuel and marketing costs on the rise, already small margins are under pressure. 

Something has to change – and fast. How can retailers create a loyal customer base that is also profitable – one that doesn’t eradicate profits by using now expected free returns to order multiple products and return at least half? How can retailers create the positive brand loyalty and environment that actively encourages customers to come and browse – both online and in store? What is the best way to move from the chaos of the online jumble sale to a virtual store that can use customer knowledge to take customers straight to the products they love?

It’s all about creating a personal connection. Asking the customer their gender and age bracket, for example, immediately allows the retailer to present a far more relevant subset of the overall product mix.  Request an ideal colour palette or preference for fell running over treadmills, and the retailer begins to create a valuable profile that can be used to nudge customers towards the most suitable items. Add in a ‘only show available stock’ button and time pressed customers will avoid the frustration of clicking on items only to discover at check out they are no longer available – or not available within the timeframe they want them by.

Make it Personal

Customer information can transform the quality of the shopping experience. This is not, however, about using super intuitive AI tools which may, at best, conclude a customer has a 98% chance of being female and a 12% chance of being a prima ballerina. Why not just ask the question? People aren’t ordering multiple items because they are desperate for a trip to the Post Office or courier collection  point; with inconsistent sizing and inadequate online descriptions they have no choice. 

Why not use this behaviour as a trigger to engage and interact? If a customer puts multiple sizes of the same product in a basket, a pop up can suggest they provide measurements to help the retailer recommend the best fit. This information can then be captured and used to enhance the customer experience every time, with a personal identity that becomes deeper with each visit.

It sounds simple but encouraging customers to provide their accurate measurements provides a huge step forward in the quality of the online experience and, critically, in reducing returns.  Some online-only retailers are offering innovative virtual measuring services, while those with online and physical presence can make it an event. Inviting customers to a pop-up shop opening where they can have a free cup of coffee, a chance to preview a new collection and a chance to be measured at the same time, is a great way of building engagement and improving personalisation – and ensures the customer knows what size to pick next time.

So Many Opportunities

Personalisation could and should be built into every stage of the online experience. Why, for example, are retailers not using returns information to improve their individual customer understanding? While some companies capture that data at a generic level to provide insight into issues with product quality and sizing, linking it to each individual customer is also hugely valuable. 

Adding it to a customer’s profile will help individuals with their next buying decision. They can check their buying history, including sizes, what they kept and what was returned, which will help them choose the correct size first time, improve the experience and minimise the need to buy – and return – multiple sizes. Or why not present a simple pop up reminding the customer which sizes he or she tends to keep, to provide a quick nudge in the right direction?

A customer searching for children’s football boots at the end of summer is probably getting ready for the new school term. Why not make the process quick and simple with a pop up saying – looks like you’re buying back to school gear, here are the items in that size we have in stock now and can get to you before term starts. Creating a personal connection isn’t complex – it just requires the right mindset.

Changing Behaviour

The speed with which online sales increased when the pandemic hit shows retailers just how quickly customer behaviour can change.  And, right now, what is the reason for customers to keep buying online while the quality of experience remains as perfunctory and impersonal as ever? 

Having invested heavily in online operational processes, retailers now face a rapid decline in demand at a time of eradicating margins. Nurturing a loyal customer base should be a priority. With peak season rapidly approaching, retailers are in the last chance saloon – action is required now.

 

News

Independent Consulting study reveals 333% 3-year ROI when retail brands use ReachFive’s CIAM

Customer identity and access management solutions drive modern customer experiences

ReachFive, a focused SaaS-based Customer Identity & Access Management (CIAM) platform vendor, is pleased to announce the availability of Forrester Consulting’s Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study; that examines the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realise when deploying ReachFive’s CIAM platform, to manage customer identities and journeys. Through client interviews with Adeo and Micromania-Zing, and financial analyses, the Forrester Consulting study (commissioned by ReachFive) found that a composite organisation experiences an ROI of 333% over three years and a payback period of less than three months when using ReachFive’s technology to accelerate their digital transformation.

How ReachFive’s CIAM platform benefits Adeo Group, Micromania-Zing and others

Adeo Group is number 3 worldwide in DIY; and Micromania-Zing is a major French video game and pop culture retailer. ReachFive enabled these retailers to supersede complex in-house and external legacy solutions for identity and authentication. Previous solutions used by these retailers were unable to scale in line with growing demand. This is part of the problem ReachFive solved. Firms can now scale CIAM features 50% faster to their brands and geographies, which the TEI study explains.

Adeo Group’s Customer platform leader explains, “We want our customers to be able to connect, navigate, and interact with our brands and partners seamlessly. Deploying ReachFive directly contributes to that objective. Furthermore, it is a great example of an IT tool deployed as a ‘platform model,’ rather than as a disconnected or siloed application.”

Micromania-Zing’s Director of e-commerce & digital adds, “We wanted to improve our ability to recognise customers, while continuing to secure authentication capabilities. We had a need to facilitate our ability to collect customer consents, to manage and store them.”

In addition, the Forrester study points out that after firms invest in ReachFive’s CIAM solution, clients were able to: 1) improve their customer experience at scale, with streamlined and accelerated authentication procedures, and 2) strengthen consent management. Moreover, by using ReachFive, the Forrester study indicates that organisations are also collecting enriched customer data through profile reconciliation capabilities, while securely managing access to identities.

The study’s key findings: quantified benefits, unquantified benefits and costs

The study’s key findings also include an assessment of quantified and unquantified benefits and costs associated with using ReachFive’s technology:

Quantified benefits: Risk-adjusted present value quantified benefits include incremental revenue with improved customer experience, resulting in $1.4 million in benefits. For instance, ReachFive helps provide frictionless authentication for organisations and facilitates the creation of user accounts. Using features like social login, single sign-on, and multifactor authentication (MFA) has led to a 15% increase of new user account creation for one organisation interviewed by Forrester. In addition to this, incremental revenue as a direct result of higher availability and scalability enabled by the ReachFive platform, results in $2.2 million in benefits. Replatforming with ReachFive also halved the time required by team members to perform associated tasks, which ultimately resulted in higher efficiency gains; helping guarantee strong data accuracy through migrations.
Unquantified benefits: Benefits not quantified for this study include stronger data protection and security; improved data-based decision-making; and an alignment and support of corporate digital strategy. This speaks to reduced risk of contravening GDPR guidelines, reduced risk of identity theft (and therefore insurance premiums that cover that eventuality) and reduced risk of damage to brand equity and consumer trust.
Costs: The composite organisation evaluated experienced implementation costs and annual license fees too.
“Through the pandemic customer relationships have become increasingly digitised. This makes it crucial for brands, especially retailers selling online, to ensure they have powerful customer identity and access management solutions in place, quickly, to enable them to drive a modern and personalised customer experience (CX). This experience needs to be able to connect identities, brands, partners, channels and customer data solutions for a seamless experience and higher conversion rates,” said Jeremy Dallois, Founder and CEO, ReachFive. “This is exactly what ReachFive promises. As the Forrester Consulting study has proven, brands can achieve a 333% ROI when working with us and achieve a payback period of less than three months when deploying our CIAM solutions.”

Russell Loarridge, Director, UK, ReachFive adds, “COVID-19 triggered a fundamental change in shopping behaviour and for the time being this online-first mentality looks set to remain. But the pandemic has also highlighted the stark difference between the online and physical shopping experience. The impersonal online experience is never going to inspire customer loyalty and that will not sustain retail in the long term. CIAM technology can move the online experience closer to the high street experience, by enabling retailers to ‘just ask’ their customers what they want and put that identity at the heart of a personalised omni-channel relationship.”

News, Retail

A new report looks at the state of British High Street and C19 as a catalyst for retail change

DownYouHighStreet.com has published a new report looking at the evolution of the British High street and how Covid-19 has been a catalyst for change within the retail environment.

The report shows that history tends to repeat itself. If we look at the impact of change on Blockbuster, and then again on Borders, we can see that these two once great retailers failed to respond to changes in customer needs and desires. What customers value most has changed considerably in the last few years, and this has been accelerated by C19. Right now, customers want convenience above all else – and it will be the retailers who give them this that will thrive.

Consumer habits have also changed: they are more comfortable than ever answering questions about themselves online, they are less loyal to brands than in previous years; and buying online has increased considerably and continues to do so.

Although many independent retailers were already adding online to their bricks-and-mortar sales channels, the lockdowns have sped up this move. For example, DownYourHighStreet.com, which helps independent retailers create an online shop, has seen a huge increase in business with more retailers moving online in one day (Monday 2nd Nov) than in the whole of January 2020.

Although unemployment has fallen in the U.K. for the past few years, the retail sector has been experiencing the opposite trend. The British Retail Consortium estimates that 900,000 jobs could be lost in the sector by 2025. Store closures are on the rise and fewer new high street retail businesses are opening.

Some sectors, however, have benefited from the pandemic including:
Technology (Apple Inc. / Microsoft Corp. / Alphabet Inc.); General Merchandise Retailers (Tesco / Waitrose); Entertainment (Netflix / YouTube / Walt Disney Co.); Biotech & Pharmaceuticals (Johnson & Johnson / AstraZeneca PLC); Work From Home Firms (Slack Technologies / Zoom Video / Communications Inc.); and Online Retailers (Amazon / Shopify / Down Your High Street).

A ‘one size fits all’ approach can no longer be applied to retail. Customers want convenience more than anything and that means buying, receiving and returning products the way they want. In some cases, this means going into a shop, for others it means doing it all online.

The report also shows there has been a rebirth of retail. The pandemic has brought a period of change like no other in retail. Lockdowns have shifted long-held consumer behaviours that retailers are having to adapt to for survival. As more people remain confined to their homes and are limiting their social and outdoor activities, the question is: which newly developed behaviours will stick in post-pandemic times?

Research shows several likely outcomes: the flight to online; a shock to loyalty; the need for hygiene transparency; a return to basics and value; and the rise of the homebody economy.

The report also looks at how the pandemic has impacted online sales for those retailers which already had a strong digital presence, how shopping has changed from 2019 to 2020 and how shoppers think they will behave in 2021 in terms of their shopping habits, and which countries make the most sales online (the UK beats the USA!)

‘The Evolution of the British High Street’ provides an up to date look at the High Street in a year that has seen changes no one could have predicted.

The report was commissioned by DownYourHighStreet.com – a free to join, low commission online marketplace on a mission to create the world’s longest high street by connecting community with commerce and giving the Great British High Street an online presence. DownYourHighStreet.com hosts thousands of products that were previously unavailable online, from100s of independent retailers, allowing sellers to create or integrate their online presence saving them time and the costs traditionally associated with establishing a visible online presence.

To learn more visit https://www.downyourhighstreet.co.uk/

COVID-19, News

6 reasons why facemasks should be worn in shops now

Since the mandatory introduction of face masks in shops across England on Friday 24th July, there has been much discussion over the decision to formally implement this practice now rather than earlier.

Alastair Lockwood (MA, BM BCh, FRCOphth, PhD) is a consultant ophthalmologist specialising in glaucoma, currently residing at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth. In 2004, Mr. Lockwood was involved in a randomised control study which proved the reduction of droplet travel using dye to colour saliva for surgeons performing ophthalmic procedures and less contamination of the surgical site. Drawing on this knowledge, Mr. Lockwood has long been endorsing the use of face masks within enclosed public spaces to protect others, until the pandemic is over. He was recently featured on BBC News discussing his views on the use of face masks as a preventative measure in the UK.

Whilst the delay in implementing mandatory use of face masks continues to be questioned, there is no doubt from Mr. Lockwood that it is still extremely important to wear a mask whenever you are in a close contact situation.

Here, Mr. Lockwood’s explains the key six reasons why you should wear face masks in shops:

1) Coronavirus is still present – We know there is still infection present in the population. This is evidenced by recent local spikes, such as in Leicester.

2) Vulnerable people are still at risk – There are people still in the population at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying if exposed to the infection.

3) Masks do lower the risk of transmission – Masks reduce the risk of transmission of virus from nose and mouth, caused by sneezing, coughing or talking,

4) Public spaces are higher risk – Enclosed public spaces where people mix, and where common surfaces are touched are the most risky areas.

4) Asymptomatic people could be infective – People can have the infection and be asymptomatic. Even if they do become symptomatic they can be asymptomatic and infective early on (i.e. have no knowledge of being ill during illness development)

5) Masks help delay transmission infection – Even if we cannot eliminate the virus we are attempting to delay the infection transmission while effective modes of vaccination and detection are being developed. Eventually we may have a finger prick test we like we do for diabetes where viral detection will be instantaneous.

6) Masks help businesses to reopen and stay open – Keeping the virus to a minimal level will allow companies and the economy to continue to reactivate and reduce the risk of a repeat lockdown, causing further economic misery.