‘Digitisation heats up retail competition’

LAHORE: Marketing challenges are sky high as neighbourhood stores compete with retail chains, which in turn eye online traders as a threat and each makes adjustments to survive, while customers remain a click away from comparing prices.
Experts point out that search technologies have made product information ever-present. Social media encourages consumers to share, compare, and rate experiences and mobile devices add an “everywhere” dimension to the digital front.
They said the process that was in vogue in developed economies, is gradually penetrating in top notch Pakistani retail outlets, adding that sales executives now stay on their toes as customers make a few taps on their smartphones to avail numerous products and services online.
Neighborhood stores have been forced to adjust their prices as technology savvy customers are not prepared to pay them higher rates that they used to charge in technology free era. The threat of online shopping has already engulfed retail outlets and many send promotional emails to customers informing them about new arrivals and discount schemes. Some brands have even offered their products online with free delivery in a specific city.
“The retail outlets have taken cue from the beating that normal retail chains received from online stores in the developed countries,” said marketing executive Yousuf Ahmad.
He said the retailers in advanced economies had to upgrade their technology to ward away the challenge of online traders. Even online giants have found that after initial euphoria the consumers now like to have at least a feel of the product before ordering.
This, he added, is the reason that many online stores are establishing bricks and mortar shops at specific points, where consumers could see the color, quality or any other product design before placing an order.
He said some online stores even deliver the goods from their brick and mortar outlet while most prefer the customer to have a feel of the product and place orders online.
“The online stores were forced to adjust partially to the conventional sale outlets after the retail outlets started dual marketing, through their retail outlets and offered to deliver goods even if the orders were placed online.”
He said few years’ back the leading technologies in bigger stores in Pakistan were point-of-sale systems and bar code scanners, adding that the system is still in vogue in many big and numerous small retail outlets. However, state of the art shopping malls are being rapidly established in big cities and new digital solutions are popping up everywhere.
He said stores empowered with in-house technologies could increase employees’ effectiveness by providing instant data to execute a task. He said few stores are now equipped with in-store navigation, in-store self service, mobile web rooming, customer tracking, self check out and loyalty apps.
IT expert Raza Arshad said digitalization of stores in Pakistan is still in infancy, adding that despite having websites, digital advertising and presence in social media the retail outlets are not exploiting the true potential of digitalization.
“To enable maximum digital impact in stores the retailers need to make adjustment in their organizational structure,” he said, ordinary retailers may not be able to increase their IT spending but larger retail chains at least would have to increase their IT spending instead of sticking to maintenance and upgrade of backbone technology.
He said in-store associates, supported by IT, should be given the responsibility to explore new technologies that can enhance the retail experience. Lean start-up teams inside the company should be formed to develop close-to-customer innovations, which can focus on quick wins by staying highly responsive to customer needs.
Raza said real digitalization of retail store may take time but it has been globally proved that the stores that took digitalization initiative remain far ahead of these that follow even in developed economies.
He said digitalization also provide these retail outlets to go global as they attain the capability to accept and execute online orders.