In this digital age, when footfall is declining and ecommerce is growing, the challenges for shopping malls seem bigger than ever. In this blog, we look at the importance of the customer experience and explore the best ways for malls to attract more shoppers.
As consumer behaviors change and shopping trends move ever more online, many shopping malls are seeing a decline in footfall and sales. Moreover, malls are finding it very difficult to compete with the endless product selection, price comparisons, and always-on nature of online shopping.
However, although consumers are getting much of their shopping needs covered online and visiting their local malls much less frequently, one advantage that shopping centers have over their ecommerce competitors remains: the interactive, in-person experience. Today's purchasers are empowered like never before, so their expectations for all of their shopping experiences have risen to a new, vastly higher level. This means only the most customer-centric businesses can reach the now-expected standard. Therefore, delivering a great customer experience can help malls regain customer loyalty and boost revenues over the long run.
With that in mind, the next issue is this: what should shopping malls do to improve the customer experience and satisfaction? Here are four ways in which Hikvision’s smart retail solutions can enhance customer experience and give shopping malls a competitive edge.
1. Understand and meet customers’ needs in real time with customer intelligence
How are people shopping these days? As consumer behavior changes and competition grows, shopping malls need to track a number of metrics to attract shoppers and improve business performance. Ask yourself the following questions: What is the average daily foot traffic for my mall? Does my mall have a reasonable shopper-to-staff ratio? Do I understand my customer’s journey?
In asking these questions, we begin to see the importance of data-based decisions regarding the customer experience. With key metric data, malls can launch more effective marketing activities and in turn generate more footfall and sales. But how can one get these metrics? The answer: with cameras that do more than just record security video.
Hikvison’s smart cameras with people counting and heat mapping capabilities provide real-time awareness of customers’ journeys through the mall. For example, smart cameras can be used to count customers entering and leaving the shopping areas, ensuring that enough staff are available to serve them. During busy times, staff can be directed to the registers when queues get too long and then return to routine tasks at non-peak times when fewer customers are in the mall.
Additionally, Hikvision’s intelligent video analytics provides new insights on which areas, shops and brands are the most popular. This helps malls to optimize available floor space throughout the retail mix and floor plan, making it more in tune with consumer needs and trends. This ensures that the shopping experience is as convenient, efficient, and satisfying as possible.
2. Capture attention and convey information quickly and efficiently with commercial displays
Shopping malls today have gone from being simply a hallway of retail stores to multipurpose complexes that feature restaurants, entertainment venues, special events, holiday activities, and more, in addition to the conventional retail shops. To attract new visitors and maintain maximum footfall, malls need to create fun and unique shopping experiences for customers.
This is where Hikvision's commercial display solutions come in. Hikvision offers a diverse range of outdoor and indoor displays with eye-catching visuals, attractive advertising, and digital navigation solutions. For example, exciting display solutions for building façades can be an effective way to draw more in-store visitors. Digital signage in central walkways can create an amazing and memorable experience for visitors. Kiosk displays in high-traffic areas can provide information about shops, brands, sales, and special events, as well as show customers the route to the nearest bathroom or exit. These solutions grab shoppers’ attention and provide useful information, boosting the whole experience in an efficient and enjoyable manner.
3. Provide easy, convenient parking with smart parking management
Today, convenience is a must, from entry to exit. From finding a parking space on the way in to smart vehicle location on the way out, malls must ensure customers not only find parking spots quickly, but also locate their parked cars easily in those shopping malls’ expansive parking structures.
Here, Hikvision’s smart parking solution makes it fast and easy to find available spaces, and helps customers locate their cars in large parking lots. This solution saves them time and improves their satisfaction when visiting the mall, improving the chances for repeat business.
4. Ensure a safe shopping environment
Security is the final piece to the puzzle. With Hikvision’s smart video solution, security teams at shopping malls can get alerts in real time to ensure the store is always safe. Additionally, Hikvision offers multiple, high-value security applications for unattended environments, from traditional video security to AI algorithms that detect incidents. These capabilities ensure that customers always feel safe and comfortable inside the mall.
Find out more
To find out more about Hikvision's retail solutions, and how they effectively attract, engage and retain customers for your malls, please visit the website.
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