One of the main challenges now facing brands and distributors is the task of enhancing the buying experience at point of sale, in response to the rising popularity of online buying. For some years now, the emergence of new consumer profiles, such as the “Millennials” or “Generation Z”, who now share the market with more traditional buyers, has prompted the retail industry to seek out new selling methods in a bid to reach out to all consumer profiles.
In the case of the health and beauty sector, the physical buying experience now boils down to decision-making, since we are talking about products specifically designed to appeal to the senses. Smell, sight and touch are precisely the attributes that guide and shape our decisions.
Since the product’s intrinsic features are now an advantage in themselves, how can we transform our health and beauty displays into something that marks us apart, aside from the product itself?
Towards greater personalisation
Health & beauty, and specifically the perfumery and cosmetics segments, is one of the most highly segmented sectors, with considerable knowledge and awareness of the different types of target consumer, and this aspect is causing brands to personalise their communications.
So why not transfer this important personalisation process to the points of sale? We are talking not only about personalising the buying experience — something more and more consumers have been calling for — but about managing to personalise in-store sales displays by making them more agile and adaptive.
Here, technology and innovation in the retail world are set to play a central role as we move towards this personalisation. Whether we succeed will depend on our ability to adapt the buying experience and the point of sale to each consumer, in the same way an online marketer can do thanks to the versatility of the Internet.
Identifying the buyer’s profile in real time through technology and offering them tailored solutions and products based on their consumer profile will surely afford us a competitive edge. All the more so in a sector in which there is already a significant amount of existing segmentation. Therefore, building an establishment in which personalisation plays a central role will require us to study and redesign the store concept beyond just the display of products.
Implementing visual merchandising in media that integrate technology will transform the points of sale in the health and beauty sector into digital stores but without losing the value of having tangible products on display. Moreover, this type of solution allows brands and distributors to be proactive in their relations with the customer above and beyond their sales force, by adding value to the buying experience through a more controlled process better aligned with business strategy.
