Shopping with Scan & Go: An Omnichannel Experience
The shopping experience has changed dramatically over the years, introducing a wide range of new aspects, features, and chances. Customers today require an omnichannel offering to be satisfied – and retailers can provide this experience with the use of Scan & Go.
In the past, shopping used to be rather one-dimensional: walking into a store, picking out items, and paying for them in cash – easy as that. Nowadays, the shopping experience has turned into a multi-dimensional venture, gaining a lot of helpful, convenient features and expanding into the digital space. This new and connected world has a lot to offer. From saving time and effort to the benefits of convenience, variety, efficiency, and customization.
To make the most of everything that the retail experience in the 21st century has to offer, adaptation is key – for the customers as well as the retailers. From a retailer’s perspective, this means responding to the changing demands, buying behaviors, and priorities of shoppers; and not being afraid to try out new technologies.
The COVID-19 pandemic gave a boost to new and enhanced ways of shopping, creating spillover effects between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores. Current buzz words concerning these transformed purchasing methods include
- Phygital,
- BOPIS model, and
- ROPO effect.
Question mark? Let’s look at the particulars of each of these ideas, and how a technology like Scan & Go can fit into the omnichannel experience.
Phygital
The concept of phygital aims to close the gap between the online and the brick-and-mortar shopping experience through the adoption of digital technologies such as augmented reality, Bluetooth beacons, or RFID tags. The goal is an enhanced and interactive experience in store.
With a Scan & Go app, merging the physical with the digital is an intuitive endeavor because this technology is already a bridge between the two. Making the most of the data collected through the app, additional features such as hyper-personalized recommendations based on past shopping behavior become available as well – a service that customers know and love from online shopping and that has been a missing component in brick-and-mortar retail, while driving e-commerce revenues for a long time.
BOPIS
The acronym stands for “buy online, pick up in store” and represents a click & collect solution – a concept of shopping which has seen a dramatic increase in popularity during the 2020 pandemic, when customers could not visit brick-and-mortar stores for extended periods of time.
The BOPIS model is a particularly convenient solution for shoppers, as they can browse through products from the comfort of their own home or on the go, then pick up their purchase whenever it suits them – avoiding shipping fees, having to navigate through the whole store, or finding a product is out of stock.
In terms of Scan & Go, BOPIS is a useful feature and can be seamlessly integrated into the app, thus embedding yet another convenient service aspect into the same application customers already use for shopping in store.
Bottom line: BOPIS is a must-have option for retail stores, as it’s a great way to boost omnichannel sales, and enables retailers to connect all aspects of commerce.
ROPO
When customers make a buying decision today, they want it to be an informed one. That is why “research online, purchase offline”, or ROPO, is a phenomenon that has been around for some time, but has seen a huge increase with the start of the smartphone era. Nowadays, the customer journey starts way before entering an actual brick-and-mortar store.
This, again, is something retailers can use to their benefit when customizing their Scan & Go app. Since most shoppers will get prior information about products they like, providing extensive information in the app, as well as reviews from other customers, is one way to benefit from the ROPO effect.
In conclusion, adding a mobile self-checkout solution to their stores enhances retailers’ omnichannel offerings in several ways, and also provides additional features such as shared shopping lists and location-based advertising, condensed into a single solution. This way, customers can move seamlessly through various channels, including brick-and-mortar stores, without missing out on convenience, offers, and safety.