Earlier this week saw the return of the Retail Business Technology Expo (RBTE) at London‘s Earl Court. In only three short years since its launch, the show has firmly established itself as the go-to event for retailers looking to sample the latest, most innovative technology solutions.
With three theatre halls and over 100 presentations taking place throughout the show‘s two-day event, a number of key themes and trends were addressed. These included how retailers can encourage new customers, using public Wi-Fi to enhance the customer experience, unlocking international markets, the importance of the physical store in omni-channel retailing, as well as looking at new technologies that are shaping the future of retail.
ShopperTrak – a provider of shopper insights and analytics – returned to the event this year to deliver a presentation alongside global jewellery and lifestyle retailer Thomas Sabo entitled, ‘Empowering the store: foot traffic data and in-store analytics for sustainable growth.‘ Jon Crossick, MD of UK and Ireland at Thomas Sabo, discussed the benefits of in-store analytics and using data to gain insights about the customer experience and the overall performance of a store.
One of the issues he addressed was how retailers can harness store data across a global network – a key consideration for Thomas Sabo as it operates in 66 countries across all five continents. In particular, Jon spoke about how the technology helped to deliver a consistent customer experience and service across its stores around the world.
ShopperTrak also discussed how interior analytics is helping other retailers across the globe to gain insights into shopper behaviour. Retailers receive essential data around the customer journey that enables them to understand the total sales opportunity and act upon it – including identifying areas of the store that the customer lingered in and whether or not they abandoned a queue.
For Thomas Sabo, shopper analytics have been particularly useful when identifying busy periods and planning staff rotas. Previously, this was largely based on gut feeling whereas now, store managers are completely confident of peak times and can staff accordingly. A Q&A session following the event highlighted the appetite to dig deeper into in-store insights and discussed the role of interior analytics to understand customer behaviour and drive improvements in the physical store.
Other speakers at the event included Mark Smith at ladies sportswear brand Sweaty Betty who talked through the brand‘s strategy for growth, whilst Rob Harper at PayPal touched on the future of payments and the importance of extending the digital experience in-store. John Lewis, Barclays, Pizza Express, WorldPay and Dr Martens were also amongst those taking part in a range of conferences and seminars throughout the show.
