A new sales tool is revolutionising the digital experience and taking customer engagement to the next level by connecting brick and mortar retailers to their customers via video link.
Shopple is an Australian-first online tool launched in September that integrates into retailer’s website and allows shoppers to connect to an in-store salesperson through video link.
The tool gives shoppers the ability to experience a completely personalised, tailored and authentic shopping experience with product advice and information with the convenience of shopping online.
David Pollard, founder of Shopple told Retailbiz that the tool gives retailers and consumers to leverage the benefits of in-store sales online.
“Shopple is really about giving power back to bricks and mortar retailers where our mission is essentially to break down the barriers driving people away from brick and mortar and to online,” he said.
“Looking at the main reason people buy online, it’s overwhelmingly convenience and we want to make it convenient for customers to buy from bricks and mortar retailers.”
The tool works either through a pop-up on a retailer’s website or by allowing consumers to find retailer’s on Shopple’s website.
Pollard says the tool is transformative for the sector as it gives shoppers the chance to have the best of both worlds.
“It’s really about emulating the in-store experience so that staff can provide advice, walk shoppers around the store, show them products and really everything they can do with a customer in-store.”
A number of retailers have already signed up for the product including businesses in fashion, furniture, car sales, homewares and a florist – and sales are on the rise, Pollard says.
“Call rates going up on daily basis and sales are happening so the retailers we do have are quite positive about it.”
Pollard says that increasingly as the popularity of e-commerce continues to rise, while consumer demand for a personalised experience grows, technology that meets these competing demands will thrive – and the very nature of brick and mortar could evolve.
“Perhaps you might see a consolidation of flagship stores rather than franchises,” he said.