Price used to be the biggest determining factor in a customer’s decision of whether or not to buy a product, or which to select when comparing items. As eCommerce has taken over and companies have found ways to leverage other components, customers have been exposed to increasingly more options than they’ve ever had – both in terms of products to buy and brands to choose from, resulting in unprecedented competition. Over time, companies have realized that the only thing more important than “getting” customers, is keeping them, leading to our new era of convenience as a product. Here are five ways brands create convenience for their shoppers that lead to greater customer retention.
1. Product Availability
Customers today have the ability to buy through a plethora of channels, including online for delivery, in-store, or picking it up from a location. Regardless of how an item is purchased, the single constant is the importance of desired items being available. As more channels continue emerging, it’s becoming more difficult for brands to ensure their items are readily available for all shoppers through all channels – making product availability a competitive advantage that yields customer retention. For customers, few things are more frustrating than desired items being out of stock, leading them to seek alternative stores to purchase from. On the contrary, one of the most effective ways to keep customers coming back is to be as reliable as possible in terms of product availability.
2. Product Variety
One of the strongest advantages any retailer or ecommerce brand can have is to offer a wide variety of products for customers to choose from; something retailers continuously strive to implement better. Offering a broad range of products enables retailers to be the answer in any-case scenario for their customers. Providing a large array of products isn’t only about offering customers different product categories; it also extends to offering competing products to offer optionality, parallel products to offer interchangeability, and compatible products that pair well with others. Having a large product selection that strategically caters to as many possible customer needs within the brand’s niche covers vastly more purchasing scenarios and creates customer retention for all niche-relevant purposes.
3. Delivery Speed
A no-brainer, delivery speed is one of the best ways to ensure that customers return. When ordering items, customers compare between different stores to find their desired product with the quickest delivery time, and even consider less preferable items in order to receive them quicker. The reason for this is that delivery is the doorway to product access; the sooner they can enjoy the product, the better – which is what causes them to compare stores and order repeatedly from the ones that deliver the fastest.
4. Brand Values
We’ve reached a time in which there’s a greater customer consciousness of the impact their purchasing decisions have, and look to consume in ways that balance the greatest positive impact with the least negative impact. For instance, customers prefer brands that demonstrate their values by donating a percentage of their order margins to charity, seek to decrease their carbon emissions, or display community involvement and initiative towards valuable causes. Modern customers know that being a customer is the same as supporting a brand, incentivizing them to shop with brands that align with their values.
5. Experience
The experience provided during browse-to-checkout has become equally important to the products themselves. As it grows increasingly frictionless across all channels and for all retailers, seamless experiences are quickly becoming the standard. With omnichannel being the focus for companies today, customers have various ways to shop with the same retailer, making the customer journey an essential piece of customer retention.
The Key to Creating Convenience As A Product
One of the latest adaptations retailers are making in the quickly-evolving market is by switching over to hyperlocal logistics. Emerging as a game-changing tactic that leads to improvements all across the board, hyperlocal logistics is also surfacing as a powerful stimulant of customer retention.
Hyperlocal logistics is an innovative approach to logistics that creates hyperlocal proximity between companies and their customers, resulting in lightning-fast deliveries. With this approach, companies ditch their excessively large warehouses that are located outside major cities, and replace them with a greater volume of smaller, better-designed fulfillment centers within cities, allowing for shorter distances and a handful of other advantages. Some of the most advanced fulfillment centers are even built to operate with retail automation, by receiving, preparing, and packaging orders for pickup or delivery.
Hyperlocal Logistics: The Express Way To Unlocking Customer Retention
Among other benefits, such as enabling companies to drastically decrease their headcount, reduce costs and increase operative efficiency, hyperlocal logistics gives companies the ability to raise their customer retention by empowering them to address each of the five points above. With hyperlocal proximity created by fulfillment centers, companies are able to ensure product availability in broader regions as a condition of beating the limitations of warehouses and store locations. In parallel, greater location volume also affords companies with greater product selection through strategically stocking nearby fulfillment centers differently. Alongside enabling faster deliveries and bringing them down to a mere few hours, this method also allows companies to reduce their carbon footprint as a result of the shorter distances, which even opens the door to exploring alternative delivery methods such as courier partnerships who utilize bicycles. Through all the benefits, hyperlocal logistics even reinforces a brand’s ability to offer omnichannel experiences and provide consistent customer journeys throughout all their channels.
Hyperlocal logistics is an advantageous strategy that helps companies rise to the top of their niches by having the infrastructure to best serve their customers. In the era of convenience as a product, the customer satisfaction created by the benefits of hyperlocal logistics produce unmatched customer retention.
