Nearly every customer has an email address, but few share it with retailers. Most stores do not even have an idea on how to use that information for anything of value, and the shopper does not see any value in sharing it either. The underused source of customer information could be a fortune for retailers.
Keith Russell, Sales Director of Striata Asia-Pacific, talked about how to engage today’s digital savvy consumer with email receipts in his presentation at Retail Asia Expo’s retail technology seminar yesterday. Russell shares with Retail in Asia some highlights of his presentation and talks about how to bring in-store customers online.
RIA: What communication challenges are Asian retailers facing nowadays?
Keith Russell (KR): Currently retailers are unable to establish effective digital relationships with their customers. Customers’ purchases are recorded on a piece of paper, providing no means to record their purchase information or profile details. This means there is no way retailers can send their customers relevant and targeted communications. Many don’t have a strategy for acquiring customers’ email addresses either.
RIA: How to manage these challenges?
KR: Retailers should consider switching to email receipts. This will enable them to marry in-store purchase data against their database of customers. Retailers can then easily monitor each in-store customer’s buying behaviour, profile them accordingly and ultimately establish a digital relationship for targeted marketing offers.
Asking the customer for their email address in order to send them a digital receipt is a legitimate reason for email address collection. This makes acquisition of contact details trusted and simple. Email receipts open the door for further opt-in campaigns to receive other document types via email.
By simply sending customers’ receipts via email, this log of purchase is transformed into a powerful email trigger that:
- Enhances your customers’ experience
- Increases your exposure
- Builds loyalty
- Garners strong customer relationships
RIA: How are retailers in Asia adopting digital retail receipts? What do you suggest them to focus more or start doing?
KR: According to the New York Times, you will be offered an electronic receipt when you shop at stores such as Apple, Sears, Kmart, Gap and Banana Republic. However, from my experience it is still a fairly new concept for retailers in Asia, so not much can be said about adoption thereof as yet.
Once retailers are introduced to the concept of email receipts, along with the benefits – to them and their customers – I have no doubt that adoption will be significant.
Retailers should focus on improving their customer communication efforts – it’s time to bring in-store customers online! We live in a digital age and with the ever-increasing number of email enabled mobile phones in the market, email receipts are a perfect vehicle to engage today’s digital savvy consumer.
RIA: For those who didn’t attend the Retail Technology seminar yesterday at Retail Asia Expo, could you briefly outline your presentation: Retail receipts via email – How to connect online with your in-store customers to deliver convenience, improve profiling and drive down operational costs?
Switching to email receipts will enhance the customers’ experience, increases exposure for retailers, builds loyalty and garners strong customer relationships.
By switching off paper, retailers will also see a reduction in operational costs, ultimately resulting in a great ROI.
Email receipts = a win-win for all:
- Offers ultimate customer convenience – easy storage and retrieval for warranties, repair or returns
- Drives email address acquisition – legitimate reason to request email address for further opt in campaigns
- Enables profiling for targeted marketing – marry purchase data against your database of customers
- Saves costs – the cost of producing paper receipts is eliminated
By simply sending customer’s receipt via email, this simple log of purchase is transformed into a powerful email trigger.