Hello – I’m Scott Lewis, Triquestra’s new Sales Executive. I recently joined the TQ team after working for a 3D company, where I was responsible for launching and selling interactive software across Australia and New Zealand.
Prior to that, I spent 10 years working in the telco sector across marketing, channel sales, partnerships and B2B direct sales. My past retail-related experiences have taught me how consistency across all channels is now the key to the future retail success.
It’s been an interesting few years
Only a few years back, in go-to-market meetings at the telco, multiple stakeholders from across the business would discuss how we were going to launch the ‘latest and greatest’ smartphone coming to market (you can probably guess the one I’m referring to).
There was the usual debate around stock allocations between channels and which partners would commit to which volume, and who would get the lion’s share of the marketing co-op budget etc, etc. But then there was also the question of how to drive more traffic to the website so the retail stores didn’t get inundated, particularly in launch week. Because of course we wanted everyone to have a good customer experience. Hang on, what? We don’t want customers going to our stores?
Were we heading down the path where our website or app was going to replace the traditional retail store? Yes, I could see the cost benefit – less rent, staff, monthly trade marketing change-outs, the list goes on… But were we sure that consumers were ready to stay at home and do all their shopping on the couch or from their phone rather than go to the malls and high streets and speak to real people?
The answer was ‘no’ then, and it still is. Recent studies back this up and challenge those who predicted that retail would go through a paradigm shift to being 100% online. Today in Australia, online shopping is responsible for only 9% of total retail sales. In the US, it’s 10%. While those numbers are set to rise, the in-store expertise is still highly valued.
Australia
United States
Obviously some people are more than happy to order online and wait for the courier or mail. But many want to go to a store and see and touch items before buying. Get face-to-face advice. Have things fixed. Want to physically compare X with Y. Browse for a gift when they’re not sure what they want.
So where to next?
It’s such an interesting time for retail – as well as an amazing opportunity. And the Triquestra team is passionate about complementing the best parts of the traditional brick-and-mortar experience with the online experience, so that regardless of how or where a client’s customers prefer to buy, their experience is consistent, tracked and personalised to their needs and interests. Especially as we all know that you have one shot to get it right and begin earning customer loyalty, or shoppers will go elsewhere.
I think it’ll be no surprise to any CIO that to deliver a great front end experience, the back end infrastructure needs to be robust and can adapt and integrate with the plethora of apps and systems that are fast coming to market and re-shaping the retail landscape.
It’s being part of this technology innovation, combined with sharing the success stories and learnings of our clients that I am looking forward to the most. How they’ve adopted a unified commerce approach within their businesses and how we were able to help them navigate the technological change in order to better anticipate the future needs of their customers – regardless of where and how they choose to shop.
If you would like to know how we can help you embrace change and offer exceptional customer experiences, I’d be happy to help out. After all, as they say – change is the only constant.
