Digital influence to drive in-store retail sales

With an aim to understand how digital influences retail in the physical in-store purchases, Deloitte in India released a report titled "Navigating the New Digital Divide 2015 - Key Imperatives for Indian Retailers”. The report is based on a survey of 2000+ urban respondents (internet users and regular shoppers across over 50 Tier 1, 2, 3 cities), and findings mapped to the Indian urban macro-economic realities to obtain perceptive metrics for retailers. Digital devices considered include mobile, laptops and desktop computers, tablets, and in-store digital devices.
 
According to the report, digital currently influences 21 per cent i.e. INR 60,000 crore of the over INR 280,000 crore of in-store organized retail sales in India. The mobile influence factor is as high as 18 percent, with smartphones being the devices of choice for accessing information while on-the-go or in-store. In terms of products, electronics and apparel hold the highest digital influence.
 
The Big Impact

As per the survey, the conversion rate of shoppers who use a digital touch-point is more than 40 per cent higher than the non-digitally influenced shoppers. These shoppers not only convert more often, but also spend more. More than 66 per cent of consumers spend more as a result of using digital with a majority spending at least 25 per cent more than they had intended. Interestingly, discount/coupon found on digital properties induced the initial purchase, but shopper ended up spending more overall.

"Customers want a coherent shopping experience along their path to purchase,” says Rohit Bhatiani, Director, Deloitte in India. "Retailers need to build a meaningful digital presence and build a roadmap towards seamless integration of physical and digital assets. The interactions between customers and retailers should not be viewed as discrete, but as a holistic experience. It becomes important that retailers recognize the impact on the overall business and not look at digital initiatives as a channel-spend subset.”
 
The impact of social media platforms on shopping is also quite high and growing by the day. These platforms act as valuable source for retailers to not only make peoplenews aware of their offerings but also to learn about customer feedback and trends. Key reasons for using social media during shopping include validation from personal network, awareness and product research.
 
Changing Preferences

Given the right digital infrastructure such as shopping apps for end-to-end shopping needs and in-store self-service kiosks, shoppers are likely to use digital almost 100 per cent of the time. In a store, over 70 per cent of shoppers would prefer to use either their own device or an interactive in-store digital device, compared to a sales associate for their shopping-related needs. Also, 96 per cent would prefer to use a digital device or touch-point to make a payment in-store, with mobile wallet being the most preferred digital payment option.
 
Furthermore, shoppers are increasingly looking for greater flexibility in buying and receiving delivery of products. About 37 per cent respondents expressed willingness to try the Buy-Online-Pick-Up-in-Store model, which gives them the option of making a purchase online and later collecting the products from the store as per their convenience.