Etail Is Booming. Here’s What Retailers Can Do To Boost Sales

While ecommerce giants Amazon and Flipkart let their soaring online sales figures do the talking, retailers and store owners should also seize opportunities that the festive spirit brings to their doorsteps. It’s that time of year when consumers invariably demonstrate an increased shopping tendency. And although they shop online, it does not slim the margin for retail sales. What must retailers then do to grab the attention of such bargain-hunting, festive shoppers?

Consider that consumers are careful about their spending and try to be well informed before making the final purchase decision. Shoppers visit retail outlets hoping to catch a glimpse of that offer board and even scout online for discount coupons. The fact that most consumers use their smartphones/mobiles, even when shopping at malls and retail outlets, makes mobile marketing a tad significant for brands, if not a necessity.

Using Programmatic Advertising

So, must retailers and store owners rely on digital advertising to attract potential buyers? The answer’s simple enough considering the time Indian adults (ages 18+) spend on digital platforms. In addition to increasing a store’s walk-in potential, brands could use digital ads across popular websites and mobile apps to engage these mobile-first, festive shoppers and store visitors. By definition, location-based programmatic advertising (LBPA) is the use of digital ads like banners and videos to advertise to shoppers when they are inside a store or in its vicinity.

Programmatic advertising is the use of software to buy media/inventory online for advertising purposes. It is common practice for brands to reach out to ad agencies to have their ads put up on billboards and hoardings. Similarly, for launching digital ads, brands resort to media buying tools to advertise on specific websites and mobile apps. Coupling such programmatic practices with location-based advertising could bear better results especially for brands with brick-and-mortar outlets. When etailers are making the most of digital advertising, why must retailers not?

The most apparent benefit of this new-age but feasible approach is the ability it gives brands to target in-store visitors in real-time. Location-based digital ads launched programmatically helps the retailer promote seasonal products or shopping discounts in the form of banner ads and video ads at relatively lower CPM rates. And because it is advertised to festive shoppers in and around the store, the ad’s usefulness to them is high.

In-store digital ads tend to be more contextually relevant to the shopper thereby relevant making it a win-win situation for both, the brand and the consumer. Another advantage for brands is that shoppers can be profiled and segmented as festive shoppers, weekend shoppers or loyal customers using web cookies. Such audience profiles can then be retargeted with programmatic ads in the future to create a positive impact on sales figures and walk in count.

Etail Or Retail: Who Will Win The Battle?

While the battle between etail and retail has only just begun, there is plenty that brands and retailers can do digitally, to promote favorable, festive consumption thereby boosting sales propensity. Especially since our country is the fifth-largest global destination in the retail space, as reported by Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), it gives us plenty of room exercise location-based programmatic advertising.

LBPA is slowly but steadily becoming popular with brands in the country whose potential buyers scout for products online and in the analog (real) world. And thankfully, marketing technology has evolved enough globally and present in India to bring this to life. As more and more marketers include LBPA to their arsenal, there is no doubt that it will herald a new age for mobile marketers, making India a retail superpower in just about a few years.