Get actionable customer insights
Knowing Your Customer Is Key
Retail Wi-Fi provides actionable customer insights. It enables targeted advertising tailored to the shopper’s interests and location. As a result, retailers and shopping malls get more sales and additional revenue from advertisers.
Retail Wi-Fi services lead to 61% more time on-premise, and 46% of customers spend more money after getting free Wi-Fi.
About 27% of US shoppers look for deals and vouchers on their smartphones while shopping. Intent to visit the store increases by 116% when the offer is location-based.
About 30% of us are checking prices online while shopping. As a result, retail Wi-Fi drives in-store sales. Because 50% of shoppers feel comfortable making large purchases, knowing the price is right.
Sources: Accenture, Thinknear, IPG Media Lab, Mediapost and IGR
OMNI-CHANNEL USER EXPERIENCE
User Story – David 23
- This is David. David is 23-year-old and very interested in fashion. He also loves latte and hanging out with friends. David always wants to be sure to get the right price, so he connects to the retail Wi-Fi service the first thing he enters the shopping mall.
As always, David login to the Wi-Fi service using his Facebook account. Because it is convenient andbecause he knows good and relevant offers will come his way as he walks through the mall. - Close to Starbucks, David gets an SMS with an offer he can’t resist.
- It is the shopping mall that welcomes David on his first visit. They offer him a free coffee at Starbucks if he downloads their loyalty app, which also has a store map with good information about the different stores. David loves shopping apps as much as he needs a coffee, so it is an easy choice.
- David uses the app to navigate through the stores in the mall. He gets excellent, relevant offers pushed to him based on his Facebook profile and current location. David is amazed at how accurate the offers are and likes the experience.
- A few meters from the H&M entrance, the app sends a notification. He has got a 25% discount voucher from H&M that is valid only for today. He enters the store and comes out 1,5 hours later with his hands full of bags.
- It is 3 pm. David realizes that he is about to skip lunch. Not good. He searches in the app to locate different restaurants. Ping! The shopping mall asks him how the day has been so far. And, yes, he gets another offer. If David can get friends to sign-up for the mall’s loyalty program and download the app, they will get a two-for-one lunch deal for every new sign-up at any of the five selected restaurants.
David uses Snapchat to find friends nearby. Soon David, Jennifer, Amy, and John are enjoying lunch together. But, as we all know. There is no such thing as a free lunch. It’s all business.
Retail Wi-Fi Is the Top Tech Priority
Eleven of the UK’s most influential shopping mall specialists were interviewed by Retail Week for their analysis of ‘why shopping centers need Wi-Fi for profitability.’ Among the respondents, 88% listed retail Wi-Fi as their top tech priority to better serve visitors. Personal communications and digital in-mall messaging were close behind.
And It’s Fuelled by Analytics
All leading Wi-Fi vendors offer heat maps and footfall analytics that show general trends of movements in the shopping mall. The users do not even have to be active on the Wi-Fi network. It’s enough that the Wi-Fi is switched on.
Retail Wi-Fi powered by social media login through a captive portal or app provides valuable insights that no other technology can. The Wi-Fi analytics include comprehensive opt-in demographics such as e-mail address, mobile number, age, gender, and interests. The user profiling can be even more granular when using our survey functionality for onboarding users to the Wi-Fi network. This data is interesting for Wi-Fi Marketing and other systems such as loyalty apps and digital advertisement signs.
The same user and location analytics are also helpful when integrating with professional advertising networks such as Google Adwords. And, of course, with the shopping mall’s existing campaign system. It’s all about triggering the right ad for the right person at the right place.
Access our Wi-Fi Resources Library
You will get access to download all our Wi-Fi-related collaterals including White Papers and Solution Briefs. You may also want to visit our insights section.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us!
Integrate Retail Wi-Fi with Other Systems
You need to integrate with other systems to maximize the value of your Wi-Fi analytics. Aptilo has long experience integrating with external systems through our Service Provider Wi-Fi offering. The Enea Aptilo SMP (software) or SMP-S (service on AWS) with Enea Aptilo SMP Venue Wi-Fi Manager is ideal for building a tailored retail Wi-Fi service with advanced integration. We also have a streamlined cloud-based offering with the most requested functions and some integration hooks with the Enea Aptilo Guest Wi-Fi Cloud.
Is Loyalty Apps the Silver Bullet for Retail?
Yes, we think so. Few business segments can benefit more from a loyalty app than shopping malls, with many different brands and the need for location-based services. As we can see from the example with David, loyalty apps are helpful and almost addictive to users once installed. It’s only that. How do you get users to install your app? One good way is to push an incentive for downloading the app to users via SMS, as in the case of David. Users that refuse to use your app can still be engaged via captive portals, SMS, and e-mail.