The world is spinning faster every moment in time and it is true when it comes to shopping. Even though, some people tend to make pre-planned shopping based on meticulous personal market surveys, most of the people leaves it to the last minute. And it is more valid in digital channel shopping like online shopping, e-commerce or on social media. Some sectors realize substantial part of their annual sales during some periods of a year as summertime when the diaspora is in the country, bayrams or new year’s eve. During these periods the prevalent mood is Last Minute Shopping. The importance of digital marketing and sales will not be repeated in this article. Instead, the subjects and techniques on how to gain last minute customers will be mostly explained for those MSME’s with e-commerce and social media infrastructure (of course there will be some recommendations for traditional businesses too). For the others, we imply that taking part and being active in digital world is mandatory for any business nowadays for the sake of being sustainable on the long term.
Let’s start by defining the mass of people possessing sales opportunity. They were only young in near past but not anymore. Nowadays, after pandemics, people from every age group are inclined towards making online shopping. They are short in time and we need to be fast while serving them and the shopping experience must be enjoyable for the customers at the same time. It is provided below some recommendations on the subject.
Navigation is important!
If you are saling through the physical store, the customer traffic in the store will tend to increase during the festive seasons and summertime. It is helpful to place some routing signs in the store for the customers to find the product groups they are looking for. The store staff should be trained on how customers shall find product groups easily and they should assist the customers in this regard. It would be better to put some souvenirs to attention grabbing points and help for easing the customer decision process. The store must be clean and tidy every time. The staff should take care of the products to be in where they should be. All these recommendations are also valid for businesses with e-commerce utility. By a visual advertisement (banner) or adding “souvenir” link to the navigation bar, the customer can be directed immediately to the section where you provide souvenir offers. It is the first rule that customers should reach out the souvenir section with least effort of “clicking”. And in this section products may be divided into sub-groups like male-female-children, etc. It is the first rule that online shopping customer need to be assisted by the web site or social media interface for navigating through.
Payment Phase
Do you ever wish to lose your customer during the payment phase in either your physical or digital store? Of course not! If there are long queues for payment or there is delay in the POS instrument for any reasons, the probability of your customer in short of time and hence in hurry, to terminate the shopping and leave you increases. That’s why you need to provide fast and easy payment experience for your clients. As the digital technologies are advancing each and every day some shops provide payment process through tablets instead of POS instruments. This enables a business to get the payment at where the customer is instead of asking her/him to go to the cashier. It would be a move towards providing convenience if a kind of mobile payment possibility is offered to the clients in the shop. While it is one of the most important issues in physical stores providing convenience to the customers by fast and easy payment process, it is vital important in online shopping particularly for the last minute shoppers. That’s why, while developing an online shopping system is a substantial improvement in marketing and sales for any MSME, it is more important to have an e-commerce utility for a convenient, fast and easy experience for the last minute shopper. The company should execute customer experience studies both from the inside of the company or from the outside parties such as professional teams on e-commerce technologies.
Product Delivery
Delivery time and date is always an important issue in online sales. But it is even more critical when it comes to the last minute shopper who is in short of time by its nature. It is advised to provide the information for example, what the due time in the day to deliver it at the same day or the day after in your online sales site. This information should be visible and give a clear message on possible delivery time for the customer. Some of the last minute shoppers may prefer to order online but deliver it from the store in a convenient time of them. It is advised for the businesses having both physical and online sales possibilities to provide this convenience to the clients. This will enable the last minute shopper to save time in the store otherwise she/he would need to spend some time to choose and pay at the store.
Gift pack
It is also a good way of providing convenience for the last minute shopper proving gift packing service. But it should be fast and nice for the client to like it very much for high level customer satisfaction. It may be considered to allocate a dedicated staff for this reason during the festive seasons. You may either provide this service professionally in a very high standard or you may provide it free. If you have online sales channels gift packing would be another and profitable way of making income. This would also encourage the customers to shop more with the convenience provided.
