How Covid has forced fence-sitting retailers to jump onto digital bandwagon

Missing the touch and feel of new garments? The impromptu discussion with store hands on the latest style and fashion trends? What if the store came to you or met you half-way, albeit virtually?

With safety issues topmost on every buyer’s mind, how can retailers who have the green signal to open their stores now, cater to shoppers who are unwilling to step out? Well, with creative use of technology. Right from product demonstration to enabling purchase — everything is being managed these days through “virtual personalisation”.
 

Mind you, the integration of digital tools into the retail business is not exactly a new development. What is new is the pace, at which retailers, who were dragging their feet earlier, are adopting technologies that make the whole process not just seamless, but contactless as well. Says Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of retail consultancy Third Eyesight, “There was a resistance earlier as business processes were set; now as business is down and digital technologies seem to help, businesses are willing to adopt them.” And by leveraging the power of technology — they are rewriting the rule book in what is essentially a walk-in market.
 

Take Brand Factory, which has just introduced virtual assistants to help customers. They are essentially the salespersons at the stores who can initiate a session via video call with a prospective shopper sitting at home. They will guide the customer through the store and annotate the products. “Consumers can call via Whatsapp and check out the merchandise. If they purchase, the product is home delivered,” says Brand Factory CMO Roch D’Souza, adding the firm is disseminating its contact details through a digital campaign.
 

French sporting goods retailer Decathlon is doing something very similar. Apart shopping assistance, it has started offering remote assistance for installation and servicing of fitness equipment within 24 hours of purchase. Decathlon says more and more customers are opting for on-call assistance. On an average, its teams receive 9,000 calls per week.

Once inside the store there are tools to help shoppers avoid the rigmarole of trials. Even as augmented reality (AR)-based trial-ons are a thing among international brands like Mac and Chambor, Indian brands like Madame are also hopping onto the bandwagon. Though Madame introduced its AR-based TryON magic mirror for dress trials over a year ago at six stores in Delhi and Punjab, it is looking to expand the facility to 50 more standalone stores across India by mid-August. “We are in talks with our Bangalore-based IT-service provider for cost optimisation so that we can install the units on a monthly-lease basis and if needed the unit can be rotated through various stores,” says Akhil Duggar Jain, executive director at Madame.
 

Explaining the technology, he says, the garment catalogue is uploaded in the magic mirror like many e-commerce sites do. When a customer is in front of the mirror, a camera in it scans his/her image. Then the customer can swipe through the catalogue and see how the garment looks on him/her.

Such assistance it probably easier for a garments retailer. The task is slightly more intricate for an electronics or durables retailer. But they are also at it — they hardly have an option.

Croma, run by Tata Group subsidiary Infiniti Retail, is offering product demonstration virtually. CMO Ritesh Ghosal says if the customer doesn’t want to step out, she can always request a call back. “A Croma staffer will call them on the requested number and assist them in choosing and buying products from the comforts of their homes,” he explains. “Customers have been checking products on croma.com and buying them from store for some time now. They can now see a virtual product demonstration as well. If a brand has a 360-degree view option, my person will assist the surfer in navigation and also explain the features.”
 

Raymond has a 3-D catalogue, which is its biggest innovation, says the company. Ravi Hudda, director, CRM and online tailoring, Digital Consumer Centre, says since it has been difficult to get models to shoot for catalogues, they have started creating digital files of garments. The 3-D catalogue can be seen on myramond.com.

So far so good. Now comes the crucial step of converting a query into a purchase.

Croma says it has divided its market into zones or territories and identified section managers who have been trained in tele-selling and each of them take care of a particular zone. A buyer will find the phone number of the nearest Croma store on its website. “We are using our website almost as a queue manager for the store. While customers with pre-booking have direct entry, walk-in customers may have to wait in a queue outside to ensure social distancing,” says Ghosal.

If you are unhappy with the virtual tour of a store, you can book an appointment for a contactless guided tour in person. The shopping assistant will guide you to the section of your choice — of course, after the mandatory temperature check and sanitisation of your hands — and you can complete your shopping in a jiffy without even touching a single product.

Brand Factory, too, enables you to book a slot for a shop visit. “Once the customer reaches, the assistant will quickly guide her through the store, and even get the billing done fast so that the customer has to spend less time inside,” says D’Souza.

After contactless shopping, you might opt for contactless pick-up as well. Some brands have created special slots in their store parking areas where products can be directly placed in a customer’s vehicle.

Take Decathlon’s “Reserve and Collect” plan, under which within two hours of receiving an SMS, confirming an order, customers can collect their merchandise through a drive-through pick-up option at designated areas at the car parking area of the store. Once they arrive at the parking, customers must share their order details and the merchandise is placed in their vehicles. Decathlon has also opened two new connect stores in Indiranagar and Whitefield areas of Bangalore for online customers to collect their products.

As you can see, most brands are trying to go omnichannel so customers can hop on and move from one platform to the next seamlessly. But doesn’t the store staff feel overwhelmed by so much technology around? Not really; retailers say they had utilised the lockdown period to train staff on the “new normal” in selling.