Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM MARCH 2019 56 T he horror stories of struggling comp sales performance from traditional brick and mortar retail are frequently written with a narrative of online pressures influencing the results. This is especially prevalent with retailers that consider themselves as premium or luxury in their major home appliance assortments. It is especially true with slow-changing retail mindsets that have pushed or ignored the impact of customers shopping and researching online in almost every one of these stories. Likely those retailers who've pinned the performance, or lack of, on the online environment have failed to properly invest in the technology, infrastructure, process or people to transform into an open arms digital retailer. Being a digital retailer should not be confused with being an online retailer, and far too often it is. Certainly if you transact on your website you are an online retailer; however, in many of the most important premium segments of a major home appliance your ability to transact online won't be enough or even required to earn a premium customer's business. Today it is simply not realistic to be singly focused in just brick and mortar or online, and expect to capture the premium and luxury customer. You need to be a digital retailer. Awareness, experience and execution continue to be the pillars of retail excellence, and that is true for both brick and mortar and online retail. Digital tools now support and guide the beginning, middle and end of the customer purchase journey. If you do not consider yourself a digital retailer you will miss out on an opportunity to earn the premium and luxury customer and likely the most profitable sale you have been working for. The option today to create engaging brand content and deliver it to customers that are in-market and ready to purchase is opening up the most cost-effective tools to build a retailer's market awareness. In the recent past, many retailers needed to rely on a more scattered approach of direct mail or print advertising headlined by "save" and "price" to build awareness. In the premium and luxury segments, this could be a very costly and long-tail payoff to an actual sale. And far too often the ROI measurement to premium or luxury marketing campaigns never came to an answer in the green. There is growing evidence that a properly timed premium brand story with compelling content can be delivered to specific customers and drive traffic to their retail location. It's more than possible, and it is already happening. Luxury brands and products can drive traffic for a digital retailer. As the customer shops, the in-store experience is greatly influenced by their ability to find accurate information. Specifications, features and demonstrations all rely on a digital retailer to be engaged and willing to invite this information into their stores. With carefully crafted digital video content available on demand, retailers can use this content to help build the prestige of a premium brand while validating the qualifications of the sales associate and the retailer against what customers have seen online. Creating consistency between what customers experience at home and in-store is a challenging job that can be made easier with the proper digital platforms. With luxury home appliances, the customer shopping journey can last as long as six months. To influence the brand preference and location for these customers requires timely consistency. Now that digital platforms have become efficient and cost-effective, retailers can rely on those platforms to help deliver the required consistency. The ability to target and capture these valuable customers with a digital retail mindset will require retailers to become consistent destinations of digital luxury customers. Derek Mattila Appliance Trends Derek Mattila, Director of Appliances for Nationwide RO DEVELOP A DIGITAL RETAIL MINDSET Capture the attention of the luxury market

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