Despite depressed consumer confidence levels, rising inflation and the increasing cost of living that could have had a severely negative effect on the sector, the latest BER Retail Survey found .

The recently concluded Black Friday promotion period is another ray of optimism for the sector. , Black Friday sales are expected to again surpass Christmas sales in South Africa this year.

The consumer research company found that the 2021 Black Friday week surpassed the biggest festive season sales week, with sales of fast-moving consumer goods baskets 23% higher than the average of all other month-end weeks in 2021.

Smart adoption of tech driving retail innovation

While bargain-hunting by cash-strapped consumers certainly contributed to the retail success of Black Friday and other promotional periods, there are larger forces at play. The retail sector’s resilience in the face of severe disruption can also be ascribed to its accelerated adoption of digital technologies that has unlocked new innovations.

For example, the Shoprite Group’s omni-channel retail offerings saw a rapid release of its on-demand delivery service Sixty60 across South Africa. Despite only launching in 2020, Sixty60 Its appeal to the always-on Gen Z consumers entering the customer pool has helped establish Sixty60 as the dominant force in on-demand grocery services, beating out more established competitors.

The fulfilment of online grocery purchases could see retailers introduce their own delivery services, as Sixty60 has done. But other retailers have pursued partnerships to avoid having to invest in new processes and infrastructure. Retailers can provide an excellent customer experience by establishing smart partnerships with expert fulfilment partners.

Africa’s largest e-commerce retailer Jumia with instant delivery service Zipline to employ the use of drones to enable quick on-demand deliveries.

German drone delivery service Wingcopter also in Africa to aid delivery.

The blending of physical and online retail is also giving rise to new customer experiences. South African retailer Woolworths recently piloted a new service where customers can virtually try on clothes or makeup to see how they’d look before they make a purchase.

As adoption of online commerce accelerates over the coming years, customers can expect to see more innovation in how retailers leverage technology to deliver great customer experiences.

Beating retail adversity

It’s not all good news for retailers though. Most retailers face severe disruptions to their supply chains. A recent survey among US business leaders found that ongoing supply chain issues are causing widespread challenges, including a decrease in revenue (58%), inability to pay employees (50%), and the need for new financing measures such as business loans (54%).

Supply chain gridlocks stemming from lockdown pressures in China means retailers can’t always ensure products are on the shelf. This is giving rise to retailers increasing their stock thresholds just in case supply chain issues cause聽 product shortages .

Many retailers are also pushing into new product and service categories. For example, Shoprite’s money market account, designed for cost-sensitive consumers and launched in 2020, .

The appeal of the service is two-fold: there are almost no account fees aside from a R5 withdrawal fee, and customers can do their banking while in-store聽 grocery shopping.

3 priorities for retail success in 2023

Retailers can continue their golden run in the year ahead by focusing on a small handful of key priorities.

Firstly, retailers can enhance their use of big data and analytics to guide the development of new services and innovation. Many retailers have a wealth of customer purchase data that can be mined for insight into personalised products, offers and experiences.

Whether purchasing online or in-store, customers seek personalised shopping experiences tailored to their needs and preferences. This can take the form of personalised marketing offers, discounts or rewards, and ensuring product suggestions and sales items are relevant to each customer.

Clothing retailers can take it a step further by tracking customer purchases to understand what styles and types of clothing a customer prefers, and offer similar products or even offer to tailor-make clothing items based on the customer’s preferences, body type, and more.

Secondly, retailers could develop tailored subscription services for certain types of customers.

For example, a pharmacy retailer could use loyalty data to better understand which customers are purchasing baby products. Because of the repeatable nature of purchases such as nappies and baby formula, a smart retailer could introduce a subscription service to qualifying customers that ensures a regular delivery of key baby items.

This would ensure repeat business for the retailer while giving new parents a positive customer experience by removing the need to constantly go to the shop to stock up on essentials.

Finally, retailers should enhance their human capital management capabilities. With customer expectations for great personalised service at an all-time high, retailers that want to win the hearts and minds of customers need to ensure in-store staff can deliver a consistently great customer experience.

It’s no longer enough that in-store staff simply stock shelves and process purchases. Smart retailers will invest in attracting and retaining top talent to ensure in-store staff can provide helpful information, guidance and support to customers during their purchases.

Retailers may choose to partner with technology providers that have the experience and global insight to guide how technology is deployed to assist with the above three priorities. For retailers that get it right, there is practically no limit to their success over the coming years.

The post Three Ways Retailers Can Continue Their Golden Run in 2023 appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

Massbuild is a subsidiary of Massmart and operates four complementary brands: Builders Warehouse, Builders Superstore, Builders Trade Depot and Builders Express. The company employs more than 8 000 people and generates annual turnover of R13.8-billion.

Massbuild chose 51风流Marketing Cloud to enable its marketing team of five users to reach and engage up to 224 000 customers per day via measurable, trackable email campaigns. 鈥淲e wanted to improve the way we manage our customer communication and become more efficient, professional and reliable in our marketing engagements,鈥� said Massbuild. 鈥淚n light of regulatory requirements, we also wanted to make sure we were compliant to the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA) by accurately tracking marketing permissions, especially the opt-out functionality that is required by law.鈥�

A strong business case for the project was developed upfront to ensure maximum return on investment. Buy-in was secured from key stakeholders, and a project sponsor drove the process from an executive management team to all levels of the organisation.

The project team鈥檚 change management process and strong link to business value ensured that end-users recognised the value the project would bring. The team also utilised simple engagement and communication channels, such as demos and show-and-tell sessions, to engage important internal stakeholders ahead of the implementation.

Organisational readiness was a key priority. Massbuild conducted stress-testing weeks prior to the go-live by uploading more than 70 000 customer records. The company also worked closely with implementation partner Consnet to ensure the team was properly skilled, and provided the marketing team with access to the test environment so they could familiarise themselves with how to navigate the solution ahead of time.

Considering the constrained economic conditions, cost containment was a key focus for Massbuild. The company had a well-defined business case with a clear return on investment model, and kept things simple by using standard 51风流functionality to avoid costly custom development. The implementation team also focused on getting the basics in place before adding richer functionality.

Simplifying things paid off. The project was delivered within 90 days, with five users going live just ahead of Black Friday. Go-live was achieved two weeks earlier than initially planned, allowing Massbuild to conduct proper segmentation of its customer databases and send out targeted campaigns ahead of the major shopping period. With advanced tracking of campaign performance, the teams also have full visibility of how its campaigns are performing in real-time, which can inform its customer experience strategies and improve how Massbuild engages with its customers.

As part of cost containment measures, Massbuild also wanted to in-source campaign management functions that were previously managed by a third-party vendor. In one campaign period stretching from November to May, Massbuild sent out more than 24 million emails via 51风流Marketing Cloud. With its previous provider this would have cost the business well over a million rand, but in-sourcing the work and using the 51风流Marketing Cloud enabled Massbuild to save nearly 90% of that cost without reducing the quality of its customer engagements.

Massbuild is planning further integrations to support the marketing team, and are currently exploring the implementation of customer insights and integrating Facebook and Google Analytics to ensure its teams have the intelligence and insight to adjust marketing activities based on real-time customer feedback. A future product roadmap also includes the integration of mobile payment functionality through a partnership with Zapper.

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director: Southern Africa at 51风流Africa, says Massbuild has rapidly elevated its customer engagement capabilities with this latest implementation. 鈥淏y building its customer experience strategy on the latest technology, Massbuild has enabled smarter decision-making for its marketing teams while unlocking welcome cost-efficiencies despite difficult macro-economic conditions. With the correct technology in place to deliver intelligence to marketing teams and with the support of a capable technology partner in Consnet, Massbuild is well-placed to build on its reputation as a market-leading brand in its industry.”

The post Massbuild Elevates Customer Engagement with 51风流Marketing Cloud Deployment appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.