Background
When it comes to digital advertising techniques, the outcomes are frequently measured in terms of purchases and revenue as well as interaction. And what if your ultimate objective is to promote foot traffic to your retail establishment? The best part would be that internet advertising can also assist you with all this. Many people believe that the world wide web has put an end to brick-and-mortar establishments, yet some items simply cannot be advertised or put on a sale over web. If someone manage a boutique, for instance, it will be realized that nothing beats allowing consumers to go and view the goods and services up close as well as face to face individually (Agrawal, and Agrawal, 2019). However, this paper will be a project proposal about the research topic, “impacts of digital technologies over Retail Industry in terms of increasing the customer footfall.”
What are the impacts of digital technologies over customer footfall in the retail industry and are they bringing any significant change to their businesses?
Which are the digital technologies that might help the retail industry in increasing their customer footfall, in order to expand their businesses with proper engagement of customers.
Acknowledging and evaluating the existing digital technologies that eventually are working in the favor of retail industry and finding out how they are assisting such businesses to increase their customer footfall.
To explore the existing digital technologies, which are being used to help the retail industry in terms of increasing their customer footfall and growth.
To focus on factors related to digital technologies that are helping the retail industry in growing their business.
To provide the recommendations or solutions for the companies that are looking for their specific growth and increase in their customer footfall.
Increased market rivalry necessitates the hunt for ways to impact customer decision-making. The dynamics of consumers’ needs, tastes, as well as methods of connecting among suppliers, is a constant source growth for businesses (Borisova, et al., 2020). The strength as well as quickness through which computerized technologies are implemented in the operational business, as well as the establishment of a framework for engagement with stakeholders, shape the modern corporate culture (Borisova, et al., 2020). There is an increase in interest towards producing digitally enabled technical alternatives. Businesses that employ these technologies assess the ROI of their expenditures. The goal of direct investment would be to strike the right balance seen among the current effect of technology upon functional operations as well as the stated objective of sustaining brand presence (Borisova, et al., 2020).
Location optimization is the cornerstone of just about any marketing aimed at increasing pedestrian traffic. You can concentrate your attention on particular places in digital networking sites, PPC, as well as sometimes even Search engine optimization. Just because you’re not trying to target a huge following, it can assist increase the relevancy of your sponsored posts while also reducing expenses. If you’re running a localized internet advertising strategy, make sure your internet advertising matches your webpage (Agrawal, and Agrawal, 2019). Even though you may market to a regional or perhaps even worldwide population, your webpage must have an interest in making sure. Make it clear to internet users that you must possess a geographical address wherein clients may come and visit you. Make sure your destination location is displayed on your webpage, and therefore it follows the structure recommended by following ranking local directories as well as Trip Advisor.
Research Objectives
To remove the major gap between online marketing and in-store sales, it is required to offer them suggestions regarding offers which platform-specific. For instance, if you offer the buyers in stores a few free items, especially when they buy some products over the online platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Moreover, in such cases stores can offer the advantages to get the first item for free under some terms and conditions and further also they can shop under a few discounts of a certain percentage. Moreover, all of this will eventually help the particular store to acknowledge the fact that which of their products is having the utmost demand.
Further information regarding digital technology and its use to increase customer footfall
As the world is shifting towards eCommerce and digital marketing, local stores are gradually being left behind. However, retailers should keep in mind that brick-and-mortar stores are the root of business ever since the Industrial Revolution (JS, et al., 2018). There are tons of benefits customers can expect when being in-store, such as personalization attention, hands-on experience, and high credibility. In this article it is discussed about how to utilize digital marketing ideas to increase footfall so that in-store shopping can bring businesses as many benefits as eCommerce. Customer satisfaction by providing a variety of advantages when they walk into a store, including personalized interaction, practical learning expertise, and a positive reputation. We’ll talk about how to use customer engagement concepts to boost pedestrian traffic such that in-store purchasing can provide companies with the same advantages as online purchasing (JS, et al., 2018).
Consumers do not like to spend additional money because it increases the total cost of their order. As a result, allowing people to take up in-store is just a terrific advertising strategy for increasing pedestrian traffic because it relieves that anxiety and assists your business competitive with some similar eCommerce stores which don’t have a geographical address (JS, et al., 2018).
In general, it’s helpful to take your consumers a variety of options for picking up their purchases. Customers should be allowed to refund an item immediately if they are unhappy with that as well as having viewed it in reality. Consumers will discover they do not want the goods just when testing it out somewhere in regular settings in which the supplies are distributed to people’s homes. If they come to whether you want to refund it, the action would not benefit your collection levels because things are partly worn down after they are handled through your consumers (JS, et al., 2018).
Enabling consumers to order internet and have it delivered in-store has an additional benefit: they may focus on introducing extra to their ‘cart’ once they arrive and speak with your representative. Spontaneous purchases are much less common while shopping internet. Customers are more inclined to contemplate purchasing a product if they have the opportunity to handle, taste, and view it (Agrawal, and Agrawal, 2019).
It is strongly advised that shops provide opportunities to increase BOPIS. Offering consumers percentage reductions whenever they try and grab in-store is a common instance. Consumers will enjoy the discounts and therefore will form a bond towards your organization, maybe leading to encourage consumers to buy. That is one of the most effective advertising strategies for increasing pedestrian traffic in your geographical locations (Agrawal, and Agrawal, 2019).
Methods
Consumers are enthusiastic about promotions. It is estimated that including a campaign will increase demand for goods by 73 percent. When buyers are rewarded with an in-store exchangeable advancement, they are more possible to arrive in and see what items and/or service providers you have to provide. After which, speaking with your revenues representative and seeing the products in individual, there was good evidence that consumers will make a purchasing process in the shop (Ravikumar, et al., 2018).
Your offer should exploit immediacy as well as the feeling of loneliness out (FOMO) through incorporating time limits to motivate visitors to visit your actual business. These behavioral approaches are based on the notion that we would be wired to behave quickly in stressful conditions and also have a strong dislike for failing. Then when you’ve got your customers into the shop, it’ll be easy to persuade them of how great your goods are really about exhibiting it as well as allowing them to test things out (Ravikumar, et al., 2018).
The percentage of subscribers searching for ‘where to buy’ + ‘near me’ smartphone inquiries has increased by more than 200 percent in the last 2 decades, compared to Google API. Furthermore, and around half of all ‘near me’ inquiries culminate in a drive to a brick-and-mortar location. As a result, near-me keyword optimization is an excellent way of promotion for boosting pedestrian traffic to your actual site (Ravikumar, et al., 2018).
To begin with any research, the first thing which is needed to be concerned about is the research design. Typically, a research design is some sort of a platform for the research according to which researcher or investigator can use it for the further proceedings of the research. There are three types of research design i.e., qualitative research design, quantitative research design, and lastly, mixed research design. Moreover, different types of research design have different types of benefits which eventually work to help the researcher for the further proceedings of the research. For instance, in the case of qualitative research design, the investigator gets help regarding hows and whys to answer the research question (McCusker, and Gunaydin, 2015). Moreover, quantitative research design also offers the researcher to gather the information in the written format along with managing to answer the research question subjectively. Besides that, in the case of quantitative research design, the researcher gets the advantage of gathering the required information in the objective form as well as numerical form. However, in this particular case, the third type of research design (mixed research design) will be followed which will eventually help the investigator to go for the advantage of both other types of research design i.e., qualitative research design and quantitative research (McCusker, and Gunaydin, 2015).
The entire research is generally based on the gathered information regarding the topic. However, to collect the required information, the researcher has to follow certain steps which are designed to gather the required data (Windle, and Silke, 2019). Data collection has two methods which are, secondary and primary data collection. In the case of primary data collection, firstly it is required by the researcher to firstly select certain workplaces which are working in the field of retail industry and then take the permission of those workplaces in order to conduct a survey (Sutton, and Austin, 2015). Moreover, the primary method of data collection is useful to gather the required support for the research.
Acknowledging and Evaluating Existing Digital Technologies
Here, to gather the required support the researcher will firstly prepare a list of shortlisted companies or workplaces where the owners or the working staff are particularly working in a retail industry. Further, the researcher used to conduct a survey with the selected samples so that the proper required information can be gathered. Moreover, the data gathered from the primary method is generally the latest and updated, because this data is provided by the real-time instances related to the retail industry field of the research topic (Windle, and Silke, 2019).
Besides that, another method of data collection is the secondary method, where the required data for the research is gathered from online sources. The researcher here goes for looking at the relatable content over the online platforms, especially to look for proper research papers, news articles, and journal articles. However, the benefit of this type of method of data collection is that it offers data that is more valid and authentic than the data gathered in the method of primary research design (Windle, and Silke, 2019). Thus, to get the advantage of both methods, the researcher will go for both types of methods.
It is a process to gather the required data and variables of the research with proper support selected samples. These samples are the participants of the research under the head of primary data collection method (Zirkel, Garcia, and Murphy, 2015). Moreover, these samples will be selected in this research by checking the relevancy od samples with the retail industry which is major concern of this research (Taherdoost, 2016). Further to acquire proper support, the researcher will conduct a survey at the selected work places working in the field of retail industry. Lastly, in this survey the researcher will ask certain questions from the prepared questionnaire with a set of 10 questions. Lastly, the sample size of this research will be 40.
After the gathering of required data, it comes the turn of the data analysis process, where the researcher analyzes the collected data, especially to check the validity and authenticity of the research and its finding (Ho, et al., 2019). Moreover, it is also required here to inform that this process helps in studying the consequences of the gathered data that later helps in obtaining the findings as well as results. However, thematic analysis, contextual data analysis, disclosure analysis, and statistical analysis are the major methods of data analysis. Here in this paper, the researcher will use the method of a statistical method of data analysis, especially because it will help them to analyze both types of data which is gathered from both methods of data collection (Ho, et al., 2019).
Ethics are the basis of any research that eventually provides the required originality of the paper. These are the norms or the standards of any research which are needed to be followed accordingly, especially by maintaining the guidelines of the university provided to maintain the ethics. Besides that, the researcher will take care of the consent of the samples who have offered the information. Also, the researcher will provide the required credits through references to the data mentioned in the paper accordingly (Pietilä, et al., 2020).
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References
Agrawal, A. and Agrawal, A., 2019. A Study On Problems Faced By The Indian Handicraft Industry & Suggestions For Growth With Special Focus On Digital Marketing.
Borisova, A., Borisova, E., Kirichenko, E. and Dmitrieva, L., 2020. Digital technologies in retail: is there an impact on businesses?. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 80, p. 01021). EDP Sciences.
Ho, J., Tumkaya, T., Aryal, S., Choi, H. and Claridge-Chang, A., 2019. Moving beyond P values: data analysis with estimation graphics. Nature methods, 16(7), pp.565-566.
JS, R., Reddy, T.N., Ghouse, S.M. and Reddy, K.S., 2017, October. A study on effectiveness of google virtual tour on business promotions. In National Conference on Marketing and Sustainable Development (Vol. 13, p. 14).
McCusker, K. and Gunaydin, S., 2015. Research using qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods and choice based on the research. Perfusion, 30(7), pp.537-542.
Pietilä, A.M., Nurmi, S.M., Halkoaho, A. and Kyngäs, H., 2020. Qualitative research: Ethical considerations. In The application of content analysis in nursing science research (pp. 49-69). Springer, Cham.
Ravikumar, J.S., Ghouse, S.M. and Reddy, T.N., 2018. A Study on Effectiveness of Google Virtual Tour on Business Promotions. Asian Journal of Management, 9(1), pp.548-554.
Sutton, J. and Austin, Z., 2015. Qualitative research: Data collection, analysis, and management. The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy, 68(3), p.226.
Taherdoost, H., 2016. Sampling methods in research methodology; how to choose a sampling technique for research. How to Choose a Sampling Technique for Research (April 10, 2016).
Windle, J. and Silke, A., 2019. Is drawing from the state ‘state of the art’?: a review of organised crime research data collection and analysis, 2004–2018. Trends in Organized Crime, 22(4), pp.394-413.
Zirkel, S., Garcia, J.A. and Murphy, M.C., 2015. Experience-sampling research methods and their potential for education research. Educational Researcher, 44(1), pp.7-16.