Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Email the key to Multi-channel retail

I've been reading about a new technology that emails your shop receipt to you when you've made a store transaction. This functionality (called Yreceipt) basically automates the process for retailers and takes the customer one step closer to a paperless shopping experience.

But in my opinion it also provides one very important function to the seller.... it helps join up the multi-channel picture for stores, by getting that one piece of data that marries the store purchase with online cuistomer transactions with any digital marketing preferences.... their email address.
This isnt exactly ground-breaking stuff, but getting a customer's usual email address when they are in the store (and yes, I'm well aware that we all have several these days) means you not only know if they've purchased at your online shop, but if they've signed up or opted out of your bulletins. You can then link the in-store purchase to this account or even reactivate them for subsequent email marketing.

Surely by linking till systems with the ecommerce database, any serious retailer can then make the shopping experience more favourable for the customer (by providing loyalty discounts & other incentives, proving an online way for them to see their entire purchasing history and then delivering added value such as emailing receipts to them)?

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