With the holidays approaching, retail brands have reached its annual climax in unleashing marketing creativity. Given the growing popularity of online and mobile platform, brands like Sephora and Net-A-Porter have invested heavily on digital this year to forge an omni-channel shopping experience.
Sephora, the subsidiary brand of LVMH, has rolled out its first Flash Boutique in Paris, which served to ramp up its consumer experience through a mobile-connected experience. Consumers will be able to shop from a digital catalogue featuring more than 14,000 items from approximately 150 beauty markets in addition to its usual makeup collections. Should shoppers unable to locate certain products, they could virtually add the merchandise to their digital baskets that enable them to pick up the desired cosmetics from Sephora in the future.
In addition to digitalize its product catalogue, Sephora has opted to experiment its digital perfume testers, allowing shoppers to pick up a Communication tag for the scent so that they could scan it on a nearby screen to smell the fragrance and explore more about the product. Of course, if they are interested in purchasing the fragrance, they could simply add it to their digital basket.
Moreover, the Flash Boutique offers a selfie mirror to allow consumers snap photos whilst trying on new items. Sephora even offers customers the opportunity to win a 1,000 Euro gift card should they disperse their selfies across social media with appointed hashtags.
Net-A-Porter, the British online retailer, made use of Sky’s Adsmart platform to target ads at viewers based on a number of demographic factors so that different consumers will see different versions of its video campaigns. For example, for its most recent “All For You” advertisement, viewers who prefer to watch long and HD videos on YouTube would be shown the long version that delineates the retailer’s stellar service and transparency. On the other hand, should users demonstrate a viewing preference for short and catchy ads, the short 30-second version would appear.
Net-A-Porter has previously implemented multiple mobile initiatives this year. The social media app it launched in April – The Net Set, is now available for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. The app enables designers, brands, fashion personalities and consumers to interact with each other real-time, sharing inspirations and their own sense of style in a two-way dialogue. Consumers will also be able to scroll through a feed of trending fashion items from across the world, give friends shopping advice, share images, interact with style icons, and view personalized “love lists”.
According to the 2015 GPShopper Holiday Mobile Shopping survey, 35 percent of consumers plan to create shopping lists and 24 percent intend to check product inventory from their phones. Pinterest has upgraded Product Pins so that they allow retailers to automatically update their merchandise inventory information through their product posts. Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr have planned to implement similar initiatives such as collaborating with fashion bloggers to make social media channels the forefront of fashion enthusiasts’ discussions.
Given the current social media trend, brands should perhaps learn from Sephora and Net-A-Porter, and to synthesize digital and Brick-and-Mortar shopping experience by allowing greater transparency of their product inventory and pricing information, creating target contents for different customer segments, and fostering long-term customer relationships through interacting more with followers.
Links:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.