NO SINGLE retail strategy wins everywhere. As Amazon, Qoo10, Lazada, Redmart, Rakuten or Tokopedia can attest, even tried and tested successful business practices might not work the same in another market. Local Retail in Australia has some unique advantages over international competitors entering the market. They are local. Being local means, they have the opportunity to be more convenient and more personal.

Here are some of the ways Australian retailers can can hammer the mighty Goliaths of Internet retail:

1. Go omnichannel

Offer a combination of e-commerce and physical presence(s); your physical presence can be a major advantage over online-only competitors.

Retailers who are able to combine online sales with real, brick-and-mortar stores can beat even Amazon at its own game.  As a Retailer with a warehouse and a local store network you  have got to be able to deliver more quickly and  with more convenience than an online pure play with only a warehouse.Operating an online-only business in an omnichannel world isn’t listening to consumers’ needs for options and convenience.

Glue Store, listened and reacted, with first-rate results. Read more here about how simple yet powerful it was to implement Click & Collect offering, Ship to Store and Home Delivery in record time and complete with trackable key metrics.

In Australia especially, the relatively vast distances between cities mean that a delivery-only retail model is slower by a notable margin than customers heading to a nearby store to collect an order. And sometimes, nothing beats a human connection in store.

2. Connect your channels

Without the right technology in place, it’s challenging to satisfy customers varying needs. For example, shoppers want to decide whether get orders delivered or pick them up from a store or locker, they want flexible returns and seamless interactions, but they do also want to be able to go into stores and feel, touch and try the products they are interested in purchasing.

Even at its most basic level, connecting your customer engagement channels can drive more sales: according to Fluent Commerce:

“44 percent of consumers who are offered click-and-collect while browsing online are more likely to shop. And, retailers experience around a 25 percent rise in sales once more options to shop and receive goods are in place.”

Any retailer seamlessly connecting their different sales, return and distribution presences will smash those who only offer the one commerce channel.

Be quicker and more convenient than Amazon. Get the eBook now.

3. Develop some Fluency in the cloud

Glue Store now avoids situations where the company’s e-commerce site shows out-of- stock for an item currently on backorder in the data centre, but where a store has the item available right there! By reducing the requirement of store-to-store shipping for order fulfilment and inventory balancing, costs fall, more orders are fulfilled and customer satisfaction levels go through the roof.

4. Don’t ignore the detail

Granular customer management not only gives shoppers a personalized service, but can also make huge differences to the bottom line.

“Build personalized offers, bespoke loyalty schemes and reach out to make every, single, customer feel like they’re singled out for that extra bit of attention.”

Personalization based on each individual customer isn’t something that happens for the Woolworth’s shopper, but you can make it a reality. Personalizing customer interactions can have a huge impact on individual shopping habits and managing such personalization enterprise-wide needn’t be difficult – and with Fluent Commerce’s rapidly deployed systems, it isn’t.

5. Use business intelligence wisely

Overarching all the data which the systems gather, the Fluent Commerce Insights application provides dashboards of analysis into every aspect of even the most complex omnichannel commerce provision. The presence and power of the derived intelligence allow retailers to maximize profits, minimize out-of-stocks and most importantly, provide customers with a seamless retail experience.

And because the whole solution is cloud-based, there’s no downtime for updates, no security issues, no hardware installation headaches. And like your favorite cloud service, Fluent is scalable at the click of a mouse, enabling you to respond to rapid changes in business, anywhere in the omnichannel retail environment.

Conclusions

Fluent Commerce’s solution provides an easy, intuitive and efficient way to implement in-store pickup, ship-from-store, endless aisle, and returns. In-store staff can manage deliveries, order fulfillment, customer collections, and returns: you’ll never miss another sale!

By providing customers with more flexibility and fulfillment options, your customers get what they need, when they need it through a seamless omnichannel experience which utilizes store inventory and drives sales.

To learn more about how Fluent Commerce can help your business be faster and easier to shop with, get in touch today or download their Glue Store case study.