Mine the loyalty gap: Four steps to take to improve customer retention and boost profits

How do you drive growth in a muddled economy? Kelly Brown explains why customer loyalty is the best path to capture share of wallet, the biggest hurdles to anticipate and how to overcome them.


The modern shopper is calculated, prudent and detached. They expect more from their favourite retailers, demanding consistency across your channels, efficiency from your service and a relationship with your brand.

But with bargain-hunting consumers hopping from source to source, and a retail recession on the horizon amid inventory, pricing and interest rate uncertainty, retailers are looking for new ways to go above and beyond to stand out in a crowded market.

So, it's no surprise that retailers’ most cited growth opportunity for 2024 is strengthening loyalty programmes.

Customer loyalty and retention is the best path to capturing market share and maximising profits because:

  • Retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones - customer acquisition costs have increased a whopping 222% in the past decade - and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers.

  • As more customers opt out of being tracked, retailers need a persuasive reason for consumers to readily share their details when engaging with different channels or touchpoints.

  • In return, retailers get a clearer picture of customer activity, behaviours and preferences, and can deliver more personalised and seamless experiences.

However, it’s a challenge to develop engaging loyalty programmes that attract and retain loyal customers while still ensuring you deliver customer value and drive profit margins.

Here are the four biggest challenges retailers face as they build customer loyalty and how to overcome them:


1. Creating a customer service mentality

One of the most significant shifts that retailers must take to retain customers is creating a strategy and culture that thinks about how to best serve them.

It’s about investing in the things that make their customers happy. It’s about addressing and resolving customer issues or concerns quickly and effectively. And it’s about going the extra mile for customers to maintain good relationships, with an extreme service mentality deliberately designed into your culture, hiring processes and business model.

But it’s a challenge to bring together the customer-centric view of marketers and customer service teams, with the product-centric view of sales and merchandisers. To deliver a truly unified customer service, these teams need to be deeply integrated and connected.

The solution: Create cross functional teams and provide the tools they need to provide exceptional service

To integrate and connect these functions you’ll need a unified platform that gives you a single source of truth for all inventory, order and customer data. With all your customer details captured and stored in single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you.

Your marketing, sales, merchandising and customer service teams can build a unified strategy and bridge the functional gaps traditionally limited by different tools, technologies and approaches.

Your store teams can view this information to offer personalised service and recommendations that encourage conversion at point of sale. And by providing an exceptional customer service, you’ll strengthen relationships with happier and more loyal customers.


2. Delivering greater value through integrated loyalty, pricing and promotions

Most retailers already provide value to customers through loyalty tactics, pricing strategies and promotional offers. However, with ever-increasing channels and customers demanding more from their favourite brands, many can’t integrate these activities for a unified CX.

While 94% of retail leaders are deploying multi-channel strategies, only 65% say their pricing and promotion strategy is consistent across all the channels. That leaves a significant 35% with inconsistencies in pricing and promotions. And few look at combining their loyalty and pricing tactics to create a unified and differentiated customer experience.

This lack of a unified value proposition can lead to disjointed experiences for customers. At worst, it results in consumers spending less when they shop or switching to a competitor.

The solution: Unify your customer data and inventory for a differentiated CX

To integrate your loyalty, pricing and promotions, you’ll need a unified commerce platform that combines data from every system and channel across your organisation.

You can then start increasing your numbers of loyalty members by offering rewards and experiences that improve and expand the reach of loyalty programmes. Exclusive pricing promotions - such as percentage or cash discounts for loyalty programme members – can create more loyalty customers, who often make more frequent or larger purchases than non-loyalty members.


3. Unleashing omnichannel experiences through stores

With the ability to see, touch and feel products and assess alternatives, stores remain the dominant sales channel, still generating more than 70% of sales and expected to continue to grow at 4% year on year. Stores are also the best channel for driving loyalty. Store conversion rates are typically 20-40% - around ten times more than ecommerce channels (only 2.5-3%).

But at a time when 75% of retailers can’t connect their online and in-store transaction data, they struggle to deliver the cohesive, consistent unified experiences customers now expect.

And despite stores being the most preferred medium of engagement, they have lower trust scores then digital channels, indicating a significant opportunity for retailers to use stores to boost customer trust.

The solution: Modernise your point of sale for elevated in-store experiences

To transform your stores to be the driver of customer loyalty and retention, your store retail systems must transform as well. A modern point of sale is now the anchor for a unified commerce platform that unifies online and store data with back-end systems so that you can create a cohesive and consistent omnichannel experience.

These systems let you create the personalised and tactile experiences customers now demand, such as accurate stock positions by store (including out of stock, in stock and on order), in-store pickups, fast fulfilment via stores and staff recommendations based on wish lists and order history.

They not only elevate the overall shopping experience to increase customer retention and loyalty but also equip you with a more nuanced understanding of shopper profiles, and a competitive advantage by offering a personalised and complete omnichannel experience.


 4. Driving personalisation at scale

Today consumers don’t think in terms of channels. They now expect a “one-brand” experience that lets them shop at any time, using any channel, from any device, at the best price.

And with consumers today also wanting more bespoke experiences, retailers are looking for ways to personalise at scale. They are transitioning from mass-market approaches to strategies that delight consumers with personalised product recommendations and tailored interactions.

But if you’ve got siloed backend systems and processes that mean your customers must deal with inconsistencies and gaps, you simply cannot offer a seamless and personalised customer experience.

The solution: Combine mass, at-scale touches with micro, personalised experiences

The ability to see each customer’s shopping preferences and purchase history across all channels is critical for building personalised shopping experiences.

With a unified commerce platform providing a holistic view of your customers, you can better plan your loyalty, pricing and promotion strategies and get the right offer or message to the right customer, at the right time and right place.

These personalised messages and offers should supplement mass, at scale touches to keep customers engaged. By balancing strategies across occasions (such as mass-market events like Click Frenzy and Black Friday) plus personalised messages (such as a birthdays) you can keep customers engaged. By creating remarkable customer experiences that meet or even exceed consumer expectations, you can ensure customers return, again and again.


Want help to modernise your loyalty programme? 

As you transform your customer experience to retain loyal customers, increase market share and maximise profits, your retail systems must transform as well. If you’re looking for help to develop your loyalty and personalisation capabilities, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop more meaningful relationships that deliver profitable growth.  


If you’re driving the CX transformation at your retail business, our unified commerce maturity model is the perfect tool to create your roadmap. Learn about the capabilities you need to create a rich mix of omnichannel experiences.

Fuel retail: How to capture the EV charging opportunity

Are you looking at how to transform your fuel & convenience retail business into a preferred destination for electric vehicle (EV) charging?


Fuel retailers launched their energy transition strategies following predictions of a rapid expansion in EV adoption, with estimates that EVs could make up 30% of all vehicles on the road globally by 2030​​.

They recognised that while EV charging was a significant threat to their core business by reducing fuel sales, it was also a massive opportunity to add a new, stable revenue stream.

By building on their existing infrastructure in prime locations, access to capital and customer knowledge, they could diversify income streams and future-proof their business.

It’s an essential element for growth by keeping a strong stream of customers at fuel forecourts and convenience stores. With customers spending more time at sites charging their cars, the extended dwell time provides opportunities to increase revenue.

It’s also critical for achieving their goals of net zero emissions and meeting regulatory commitments.

Today, the majority (70%) of fuel retailers are either already offering or planning to offer EV services, and retailers not investing in this area may miss out on capturing a share of this growing market.


However, as car manufacturers worldwide grapple with slower than expected sales of EVs amid intensifying price wars, fuel retailers have been forced to revise how they execute their EV strategies.

While most have not changed their EV ambitions, they are now executing their goals with more precision by focussing on the key opportunities for growth.

They also recognise that the move to EV charging is a major business disruption and risk:

  •  Fuel retailers face formidable competition from other entrants, including OEMs, power companies and pure-play charge point operators (CPOs).

  • Any large-scale investment in EV charging points must not only earn back the capital expenditures invested, but also operate profitably.

  • With the large electricity demands from fast chargers and extremely high power prices, many EV charging businesses still operate at a loss.

Despite these hurdles, the future is clear. Without significant changes to their business models, at least a quarter of service stations worldwide are at risk of closure by 2035.


So what are the key factors for success?

To become a preferred destination for EV charging, retailers are exploring three areas:

Offer on-the-go charging  

While EV drivers can charge at home or at work, these charging stations are likely to be slow, low voltage points. On-the-go stations use higher power, DC charging points that let EVs fully charge their batteries in under an hour.

With their existing infrastructure in prime locations and established fuel retail operations, fuel retailers can fill in a gap in the EV charging infrastructure and capture a convenience premium.

As more people transition to EVs and not all have access to home charging facilities, there’s a growing dependence on public charging infrastructure. For example, in the UK about 36% of EV drivers regularly charge their vehicles at service stations​.

However, it will require significant investments to develop an attractive, competitive and profitable EV offering. With recharging taking far longer than refuelling, operators need to adjust their station formats to provide expanded services and facilities. And ideal EV charging locations won’t necessarily correspond with the best fuel locations.

Capture commercial fleets 

EV charging for large business-to-business fleets is a growing opportunity as governments and businesses move to decarbonise their vehicles. Electric vehicles are already being deployed en masse in short-haul transport, last-mile logistics and commercial business fleets. 

While likely to become highly competitive, fuel retailers can secure first-mover advantage with an end-to-end offer, combining “on-the-go” and “at-depot” charging.  

Create a compelling CX 

Innovative fuel retailers are investing early to learn about customer needs and experiment with new propositions and formats.  

They’re creating a compelling mix of convenience, speed, reliability and affordability: 

  •  Mobile apps will cement customer loyalty and increase return visits 

  • Reliability is a focus - drivers with a low battery charge will prioritise sites where chargers consistently work properly 

  • Clean and safe locations, with expanded seating and decent restrooms will increase dwell time 

  • Reservation systems will remove the frustration of waiting for a charger

  • Barista-made coffee, fresh food options and other premium services (such as high-end car washes) will provide customers with more reasons to visit and generate additional revenue 

  • Cluster- or even site-specific offers tailored for local buying opportunities will increase sell-through without compromising margin

  • Customised product bundles, pricing and promotions based on customer transaction histories will attract and retain loyal customers

This blog was originally published on 28 March 2023 and updated 6 June 2024.


Want help to differentiate your EV charging offering? 

If you’re looking for help to innovate to serve customers, not vehicles, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the distinctive and frictionless c-store experiences consumers now expect. 


For more on how to deliver every c-store customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our ebook:  


Kelly Brown steps down as Triquestra CEO

After 18 years of leadership, our CEO Kelly Brown is stepping down from her role effective 5 July 2024.

Kelly has led with heart and soul, and we’re grateful for her vision, dedication and the leadership role she’s played in making Triquestra what it is today.

She fostered a company culture grounded on mutual respect and a passion for excellence and customer success. Her leadership has been instrumental to our growth, and her legacy is one of innovation, adaptability and collaborative management.

“I've decided to leave Triquestra because it’s a new chapter for TQ and time for a new professional challenge for me,” said Kelly. “I’ve enjoyed a terrific career in the rapidly changing retail tech sector. What drew me in and kept me excited to deliver TQ’s purpose year after year was the team’s ambition for the business, their collective smarts and genuine commitment to prioritise people and clients.

One of my proudest achievements at TQ is the development of an exceptional leadership team. Together with our committed Board members, I have deep confidence in them to lead TQ into the future,” said Kelly.

“I was thrilled to lead TQ’s engagement in Vela APX’s acquisition of the business last year and am delighted by the opportunities it gives our people and clients,” Kelly added. “After 9 months working alongside the Vela team, I am confident we chose the right partner to support TQ’s focus and expertise in delivering world-class unified commerce solutions.”

Ron Beddows, Director of Triquestra, said, “On behalf of the Vela Group and Triquestra Board, I want to thank Kelly for her leadership and focus on our retail clients, partners and employees.

“Triquestra transformed its business model and strengthened its value proposition for retail brands and partners. Kelly has developed a company now globally recognised for its product, culture and performance.”

A process will shortly commence to find Kelly’s replacement.

We look forward to building on everything accomplished under Kelly’s leadership, and the team are incredibly energised by the opportunities ahead.

Thank you, Kelly. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours and look forward to seeing the things you will undoubtedly achieve.

Thanks also to all our clients and partners for your continued support. We continue to be focussed on supporting retailers and brands deliver the unified experiences consumers now expect.

The perfect blend: Four capabilities to look for in a liquor retail tech partner

Can your liquor retail business keep up with customer demand for new digital experiences?


Brick-and-mortar sales still dominate the liquor retail sector, with online sales languishing at single-digit percentages of total sales.

However, the move to online is real, with liquor online sales globally estimated to grow 4.5% between 2022 and 2027, reaching nearly US$40 billion by 2027.

This growth in online sales is introducing more complexity into the business, with channels becoming less physical and more digital. And that’s why everyone’s focussed on finding the right systems to rebuild their businesses from the bottom up for omnichannel retail.

But at a time when 2 in 5 retailers (40%) lack in-house expertise to make the most of new technologies, and only 25% of retailers can connect online and store data, they know that working with the right people and the right technologies will make the roll-out of new customer experiences much easier, and deliver results much faster.

So, how do you evaluate a new retail platform provider?

There are four important capabilities they will need to provide:


1.    Expertise across all retail, not just liquor

You’ll want a mature retail platform that supports liquor and convenience, rather than a narrow, liquor-specific POS system.

A partner with experience in highly competitive retail industries - like fashion and big-box retail - will have expertise in disrupting the customer experience, with APIs and a retail ecosystem few can match.

They’ll bring best practice ideas and capabilities from other retail sectors - not just liquor retail - and have POS omnichannel expertise distilled into all the essential modules you need to deliver seamless and differentiating experiences in stores, online and on mobile apps.

And with all the core liquor features you need out-of-the-box - plus localised functionality and the ability to customise – you’ll achieve a faster return on investment.


2.    Real-world customer experience

A strong track record and referenceable customer base means less risk.

You’ll want a partner with recent and proven success in liquor and convenience retail, with a track record of complex, large-scale deployments across multiple stores, multiple formats and multiple geographies.  

They’ll need to understand your environment where fast service is non-negotiable, staff require specialist knowledge and transaction volumes are highly variable. Make sure they have people who can help you plan and implement your projects, so that they deliver now and well into the future.

Their experience in the liquor sector will give them a deep understanding of the trends changing mobility and convenience, and bring you the best of consumer, retail and CX applications and technologies.


3.    Broad product capability and innovation mindset

Choose a partner that can give you a holistic portfolio and expansive retail ecosystem.

Offering a unified customer experience means unifying all the front- and back-end systems that run POS, inventory, ordering, customers and loyalty, pricing and promotions, analytics and fulfilment. You don’t want to be tied to a point player that can only provide segments.

When you choose a partner with a mature platform, they can focus on delivering innovation because the critical functionality you need already exists.

An open architecture and APIs will let you cultivate a modern retail and CX ecosystem that reduces risk and increases flexibility.

And with agile methodologies plus experience working with agile retailers, they’ll have the ability to move to fast and change direction as opportunities develop, competitors act and customer needs evolve.


4.    Local and committed to your success

A local partner means you can have more influence on the product roadmap and expect faster turnaround.

Liquor retailers are creating distinctive omnichannel customer experiences by developing strong brands, offering tailored convenience, expanding the breadth of their product offerings (or moving into specialist categories) and generating new revenue streams.

They recognise the risk that comes with global vendors that have a narrow focus on liquor POS or an indirect model of engagement and support.

A local business means you can enjoy direct engagement with on-the-ground people focussed on your needs, and not distracted by offshore business activity. With direct access to second and third level support and simple processes, you’ll enjoy leaner, faster support services.

Biggest isn’t always best. A mid-sized company will have fewer layers of bureaucracy, giving them more agility and responsiveness.

It also means that you’ll be an important customer of influence to your partner - they will value your business and work hard for it.


Want help to deliver a personalised, fast and seamless CX?

Our product and people are supporting award-winning retailers delivering disruptive, world-first customer experiences that build loyalty and grow sales. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you digitise your business to create the unified experiences your customers now expect.


For more on how to deliver every customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our ebook:

6 omnichannel retail painpoints unified commerce solves

With rising customer expectations for a cohesive and consistent shopping experience, many retailers have hit a wall because their omnichannel efforts can’t meet today’s retail demands. Here Kelly Brown describes six major challenges you will face in omnichannel retail, and how to solve them.


Customers today are delightfully unreasonable, and expect to transact when, where and however they want. They don’t care how you achieve it and will reward you if you have it - or shop elsewhere if you don’t. 

Retailers are responding by building a customer-centric approach to retail, using technology and experiences to enhance the brand, drive sales and grow loyalty.  

However, it’s complicated.  

Many omnichannel retail solutions can look smooth on the surface but have rough patches underneath. They include legacy solutions that are no longer fit for purpose, and channels operating in functional silos. Things can easily unravel.  

And when 75% of retailers are unable to connect their online and in-store transaction data, most struggle to create a unified user experience that traverses easily between online and offline channels.  

If you’re looking at how to keep pace with changing customer expectations, here are the most common challenges retailers face as they build their omnichannel systems, and how they can be remedied with a unified commerce approach. 


1

Inventory that isn’t real time

Managing inventory is a retailer’s biggest challenge — no matter their size. It’s also the biggest cost. Many retailers launched digital commerce channels without getting their inventory right and can only access rudimentary sales and inventory positions. That prevents them from offering the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for them.  

The solution: Optimise inventory and availability  

One of the most compelling benefits of unified commerce is a single view of stock across all stores and DCs. This means you can quickly see where inventory is and therefore the fastest place to fulfil from. You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster. And you’ll increase sales by using ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels).  


2

Blending physical and digital experiences 

Services such as click-and-collect, ship-from-store, find-in-store and returns anywhere are all just table stakes today. Many retailers implemented quick-fixes to swiftly get new capabilities up-and-running, but now need a long-term unified solution to connect backend systems and deliver the omnichannel experiences customers expect. 

The solution: Create relevant and agile experiences 

With a unified inventory you can increase your purchasing, ordering and fulfilment options to provide customers with frictionless experiences and access to your entire range from any location. A single platform gives everyone across channels and stores the ability to view all customer touchpoints in real time. And you can extend your range across more sales channels such as in-store kiosks, shoppable screens, pop-up stores, concessions and mobile devices. 


3

Obtaining a single view of the customer  

Today consumers don’t think in terms of channels. They now expect a “one-brand” experience that lets them shop at any time, using any channel, from any device, at the best price. But if you’ve got siloed backend systems and processes that mean your customers must deal with inconsistencies and gaps, you simply cannot offer a seamless customer experience.  

The solution: Personalise your customer experience  

The ability to see each customer’s shopping preferences and purchase history across all channels is critical for building personalised shopping experiences. With a unified commerce platform providing a holistic view of your customers, you can better plan your pricing and promotion strategies and get the right offer or message to the right customer, at the right time and right place. By creating remarkable customer experiences that meet or even exceed consumer expectations, you can ensure customers return, again and again. 


4

Integrating data silos

Retailers use multiple customer-facing and back-office systems, spanning POS, mobile apps, inventory management, ecommerce, CRM, fulfilment, finance, marketing and more. Often loosely connected with manual processes and custom integrations, these omnichannel solutions are fragile, inefficient and costly to maintain. 

The solution: Lower cost of ownership 

A single commerce platform gives you a leaner and more flexible architecture that reduces the need for reconciliation and manual processes to maintain and manage data and functions, and there is only one system to secure. Exposing data and functions (rather than moving and replicating them) makes integration faster and standards-based, improving efficiency, decreasing errors and increasing accuracy. Third parties can easily plug in, building the ecosystem of retail software, tools, resources and devices you can add and change to match your business needs.  


5

Adding modern technologies and capabilities  

To keep pace with consumer demands for omnichannel services, retailers need to create and deploy new apps, services and channels. However, connecting legacy systems with modern technologies requires custom integrations, and creating new brand experiences is complex, costly, time consuming and risky.  

The solution: Accelerate speed to market  

With a single platform, there’s less work required to plug in and implement new functions across channels, test cycles are reduced, and you’ll use development capacity more effectively. You can run experiments to test new customer experience innovations and easily move the successful experiments into enterprise-wide operations. These improvements in IT efficiency and flexibility let you launch new tools and services to meet business demands and start seeing revenue benefits faster. 


6

Unifying employee experiences 

After years of underinvestment, many retailers are playing catch-up with the employee experience. Their stores often lack the tools and systems that enable their people to deliver the relevant and personalised customer experiences that match online shopping’s price, speed and convenience.  

The solution: Boost in-store productivity and sales

By arming your store staff with the right customer data and tools, combined with AI-driven recommendations, they can more easily make decisions, provide personalised upselling advice, sell inventory at any location and serve customers faster, anywhere in the store. You’ll enhance customer interactions, improve the employee experience and increase conversions.  

This blog was originally published on 13 December 2022 and updated 20 May 2024


Can you keep up with your customers’ expectations? 

Retailers are unifying their backend systems to create the seamless and convenient experiences customers now expect. If you’re experiencing technology challenges that prevent you from unifying your physical and digital experiences, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop the ability to create a compelling in-store experience harmonised with a digital offering for competitive advantage.


For more on how a move to a unified commerce strategy gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing needs, download our ebook:


Delivering a unified CX: liquor retail's new priority

Can you keep up with consumer demands for an omnichannel retail experience that doesn’t stop when they enter a store? Kelly Brown explains why liquor retailers are overhauling how they plan, build and deliver their CX, and shares three steps to take to remain relevant.


Customers today expect retailers to offer convenience, speed and value throughout the end-to-end shopping journey. They are more discerning and impatient, and don’t care that it can be hard to deliver – they only care about a great experience.  

That is driving a massive shift in how liquor retailers plan, build and deliver their customer experience.  

The retailers making the first move know that a compelling bricks-and-mortar presence blended with an improved digital offering can be leveraged for competitive advantage. And that means seamlessly integrating all back-end systems and channels to deliver experiences that align with customer expectations.   

However, it’s complicated.  

While liquor retail has always been challenging – fast service is non-negotiable, staff require specialised knowledge and transaction volumes are highly variable – this requires a fundamental transformation of the standard business model.  

Liquor retail has been a laggard in creating new digital experiences and investing in technology to improve front- and back-end operations. Many liquor retailers have legacy solutions that are no longer fit for purpose and have bolted on solutions for the digital space that don’t easily integrate.   

Brick-and-mortar sales still dominate, with online sales growing but still languishing at single-digit percentages of total sales-digit percentages of total sales. Change is difficult in a sector with regulatory restrictions on alcohol delivery, age verification requirements and the more ‘sensory’ experience a store can offer.  

And at a time when 75% of retailers can’t connect their online and in-store transaction data, many struggle to deliver the cohesive, consistent unified experiences customers now expect.   


So what steps can you take to differentiate your liquor retail business?  

Here’s a three-pronged strategy that will help create the distinctive omnichannel experiences customers now expect: 

1. Deliver a unified customer experience 

Focus on the end-to-end needs of your customers and revamp the customer journey to expand your relationship beyond quick visits to stock up on beverages.  

That means making purchasing online and in stores seamless and convenient through digital payments, endless aisle and ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ services coupled with fast and flexible on-demand delivery options. In-store pickup can drive foot traffic to physical locations. And leveraging data from online interactions can help in upselling and cross-selling.  

Take advantage of the shift in preference for neighbourhood shopping, with local product ranges tailored to each location and community, supported by bespoke promotional programmes.  

Use apps and your website to provide customers with personalised recommendations, invites to virtual tastings or opportunities to reserve products for in-store pickup, increasing their engagement and loyalty.  

The solution: Create a distinctive omnichannel customer experience by developing a strong brand, offering tailored convenience, expanding the breadth of product offerings (or moving into specialist categories) and generating new revenue streams. 


2. Unlock the value in your inventory

As you work towards delivering a compelling in-store experience blended with a digital offering, you’ll need to see a real-time view of all your inventory. If you don’t know the quantity of an item, where it is located, its current price nor status, you can’t offer the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for you.   

However, the average inventory accuracy rate for retailers is estimated at 63%, meaning around one third of inventory records are inaccurate due to discrepancies between physical stock and what's recorded in inventory management systems. And liquor retailers face additional challenges, such as strict regulations, varying product availability and high SKU diversity, that compound these difficulties.  

Inaccurate inventory stems from both systemic and operational challenges. Retailers often rely on traditional ERP systems or custom-built software that can’t provide the real-time updates needed for online sales and instant stock checks. On top of that, legacy systems not designed for real-time data exchange struggle to keep up with the demands of new sales channels, resulting in delayed or inaccurate product availability and pricing information.   

The use of multiple, often disconnected systems for various retail operations further compounds the problem, creating data silos that hinder the development of a unified view of inventory, sales and customer interactions. And when things go wrong, many resort to a quick fix rather than real, lasting solution, which means missing out on chances to really improve the shopping experience and operational efficiency. 

The solution: You’ll want a unified commerce platform that provides an accurate, real-time view of all your inventory and customer data across stores, DCs and digital channels. You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and increase ranging capabilities.  


3. Pivot into retail media services   

To remain relevant and competitive in the future, you’ll want to venture beyond traditional retailing and enter new service categories with a higher level of profitability.  

Retail media networks are emerging as one example in retail. A retail media network is a retailer’s advertising platform where they can sell ad space across all their digital assets, such as their website, apps, social channels and in-store digital screens.  

With the demise of revenue from third-party cookies, retail media helps alcohol brands to advertise to the right audience - people who want to purchase alcohol and are legally entitled to do so - and drive higher conversions that increase sales. And as online alcohol sales grow – 15.2% growth is expected between 2022 to 2030 - so will advertising revenues for retailers.  

The solution: With the alcohol industry’s advertising spend expected to reach $6bn in 2023, create a retail media division (or subsidiary) to capitalise on the advertising revenue opportunity and drive additional new growth. 

This blog was originally published on 30 May 2023 and updated 30 April 2024


Want help to differentiate your liquor business? 

If you want to create distinctive and frictionless customer experiences across all physical and digital channels, get in touch. We’d love to help you develop a unified customer journey. 


For more on how to deliver every customer a personalised, fast and seamless experience, download our new ebook:  

From bland to demand: 6 opportunities from increasing your IT spend

Are you confident your next tech investment will help achieve your strategic business goals by solving the challenges you face and creating new opportunities? 

In recent blogs we asked if retailers were spending enough on their IT and, if not, how to make the case for increasing spend. We also shared retailer’s top spending goals for 2024 and three investment priorities

Now we’re looking at the metrics retailers have set themselves to gauge their success in 2024, and the opportunities unleashed by increased IT spend.  


Even though it’s tempting to press pause during another challenging year, the most successful companies will be those that find ways to differentiate to meet changing customer demand.  

Retailers that are aggressive on growth – creating distinctive omnichannel customer experiences and expanding their product offerings, while also reducing costs over time - are the companies that will create value, meet customer needs and head off the competition.  

The most progressive and driven retailers know that they need to do it quickly. But at a time when only 25% of retailers can connect their online and in-store transaction data, many retailers struggle to create a unified user experience that traverses easily between online and offline channels.  

That’s why unified commerce is now firmly established as the dominant modern retail strategy, with 88% of retailers investing in unified commerce or considering doing so to unify online and store experiences and make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future.     


Making investments count 

So how do you ensure your next investment will drive growth in a muddled economic environment?  

As retailers ramp up their technology investments this year, they’ve put in place critical metrics to measure the value

  • Customers at the centre: Most retailers (94%) ranked new technology as a significant driver for drawing in new customers, with 35% citing it as their main driver. The metrics they’re using this year include increasing new customers numbers (54%) and retaining existing customers (47%). The amount customers spend is also scrutinised, with retailers looking for increased sales (48%) or cost savings (48%) that can be attributed to their tech investments. 

But, despite customers being at the centre of ROI metrics, nearly half of organisations invest in technology without thinking about the customer experience (48%). 

  • Empowering employees: Employees are also at the centre of what makes technology work: 61% of retailers ranked well-prepared and well-informed staff equipped with new technologies as the most important factor for a successful in-store experience.  

However, more than 2 in 5 (41%) do not seek or consider employee input for these same technology investments, despite the impact this tech will have on them and the valuable insight they have into how it affects customers.  

  • Demanding more from partners: As they put the pressure on themselves to make tech investments count, retail execs are also putting pressure on their partners. Their top expectations of tech vendors include accessibility of solutions (50%), the ability to build long-term partnerships (48%) and ‘cutting edge’ technology (46%). Unsurprisingly, they also demand retail industry expertise (45%) and use cases for technology solutions (42%). 

But 2 in 5 retailers (40%) lack in-house expertise to make the most of these new technologies. 


As you build your foundation for modern retail, are you confident your next tech investment will deliver REAL value for your business?  

There are six important opportunities your retail business can unleash by increasing its investment in IT:  

1. Simplify technology and improve business agility 

A modern infrastructure gives you a leaner and more flexible architecture to deliver greater agility, increased efficiency, more control and cost savings: 

  • Scalability: third parties can easily plug in, building the ecosystem of retail software, tools, resources and devices you can add and change to match your business needs.  

  • Accuracy: exposing data and functions via APIs (rather than moving and replicating them) makes integration faster and standards-based, improving efficiency, decreasing errors and increasing accuracy.  

  • Easier to maintain: a central platform reduces the need for reconciliation and manual processes to maintain and manage data and functions, and there is only one system to secure.  

  • Reduced costs: Reduced maintenance, fewer developer hours, faster integration and scalable infrastructure decreases your overheads.   

2. Meet changing customer expectations  

Changing consumer preferences and rising expectations for omnichannel experiences are creating new growth opportunities. The retailers that deliver a personalised and memorable CX are best positioned for long-term growth and loyalty. With a holistic view of your customers, you can better plan your pricing and promotion strategies and get the right offer or message to the right customer, at the right time and right place. By creating remarkable customer experiences that meet or even exceed consumer expectations, customers will return again and again.  

3. Accelerate speed to market  

Improvements in IT efficiency and flexibility let you launch new tools and services to meet business demands and start seeing revenue benefits faster. There’s less work required to plug in and implement new functions across channels, test cycles are reduced, and you’ll use development capacity more effectively. You can run experiments to test new customer experience innovations, easily move the successful experiments into enterprise-wide operations and adapt to new market demands. You’ll innovate quicker, increase speed to market and build your competitive advantage.  

4. Better data insights for relevant and agile experiences 

A single, unified platform gives everyone across channels and stores the ability to view all customer touchpoints and react to potential issues in real time. With a single source of truth and powerful analytics, you can turn large amounts of data from disparate sources into insights that help you to attract and engage customers in new ways and improve your bottom line.  

5. Optimise inventory and availability  

With a unified retail platform that gives you a single view of stock across all locations, plus the ability to easily move it around the business, you’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster. Your most significant benefit will be increased sales generated by ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels). And by giving customers a range of purchasing and fulfilment options, you’ll enhance your service and increase customer satisfaction.   

6. Boost employee productivity and sales  

By arming your store staff with the right customer data and tools at point of sale, combined with AI-driven recommendations, they can more easily make decisions, provide personalised upselling advice, sell inventory at any location and serve customers faster, anywhere in the store. You’ll enhance customer interactions, improve the employee experience and increase conversions.   


Want help to build your foundation for modern retail? 

We can advise you on the key technology investments creating differentiated customer experiences and business agility. Just contact me at kelly.brown@triquestra.com or get in touch


For insights into how a unified commerce approach gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing need, download our ebook:

New in Infinity – April 2024

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.  


PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Simplify item data updates to Wedderburn Scales at POS

Businesses using supported Wedderburn scales at the Point of Sale can now send updated item data to the scales via the Atria Wedge software automatically using Windows Task Scheduler, saving you the time and effort involved in updating pricing and other data manually. If you run the Wedderburn integration at the Head Office, price updates made using the Batch Updates function will also be sent to the scales.


INVENTORY

Enhance efficiency of EDI purchase orders

We’ve improved purchase ordering using EDI files by allowing you to identify suppliers that can be sent purchase orders plus items that can be ordered using this method, so you won’t waste time and risk stock shortages by sending EDI orders to the wrong supplier or by ordering products not on EDI.


ORDER MANAGEMENT

Streamline order documents for debtor customer accounts

You now have the option of customising your A4 customer order documents by suppressing the payment section. This feature reduces visual clutter on the documents when you process orders for debtor customers who pay on account.


CUSTOMERS & LOYALTY

Meet privacy law obligations by anonymising inactive customer data

As part of our programme of giving you options for managing your Personal Identifiable Information (PII) risk, we’ve developed a Windows service that anonymises information for inactive loyalty customers. The Infinity Loyalty Anonymisation Service allows you to anonymise inactive customers’ personal details held in the Loyalty database, as well as details of their order deliveries. It will also delete any messages that were sent to inactive loyalty customers using Infinity Messaging.

Simplify management of fuel discount programmes

If your fuel business operates a cents-per-litre discount (CPL) programme, you can now require that customers spend their CPL balance when they buy fuel, instead of allowing them to choose whether to save or spend it. You can also set a minimum amount a customer has to spend before the CPL discount applies. This simplified offering has the advantage of lowering the overhead involved in managing stored balances while still giving your customers the benefit of fuel savings.

Reduce fuel sales leakage with secure refund options

Fuel businesses wanting to support their commercial customers in reducing fuel sales leakages can now require that refunds be made to a credit card or fuel card instead of to cash or another media. Note that this feature requires the Vault payment and extended returns modules in order to work.

Improve auditing of manual fuel discounting

Your Head Office staff can now add a note when manually adjusting a cent-per-litre fuel balance, allowing you to view and audit the reasons why balances are being adjusted in your business.


POINT OF SALE

Improve customer experience with faster age validation checks

If you use Infinity’s advanced age check function to make sure you’re complying with legal age requirements when serving customers, you’ll find we’ve made age validation quicker and easier, improving the customer experience and speeding up sales processing at busy times.

Improve permissions for manual fuel price changes at POS

We’ve made some enhancements to the way fuel price changes can be made at the Point of Sale to minimise the chance of the wrong price being applied. You can now use permissions to determine who can make manual price changes, and you can set a maximum amount in cents by which a fuel grade can be manually adjusted.


REPORTS & ANALYTICS

Identify irregularities in fuel prepay sales and refunds

Fuel businesses can use the new Fuel Prepay Refund Report to spot irregularities in the payment medias used in prepay sales and refunds. So, for example, you can see if a prepay fuel card was used to purchase fuel but the refund was processed as cash. It complements the new functionality that requires refunds to be made to credit or fuel cards (see above), but it applies only to prepay sales made using those cards.

Improve financial compensation for stores running fuel discounts

The CPL Redemptions Report gives your stores and head office staff an understanding of cents-per-litre discounts that have been paid out as a way of supporting financial processes tied to discounts and financial compensation. Stores can use it to see what they have paid out in CPL discounts, while head office can use it to audit store activity, and make sure that stores are being adequately compensated for those payouts.


MOBILE

Infinity quotes and orders app

The Infinity Quotes and Orders mobile app (iOS and Android) has been retired from the product suite as at end of May, 2024. 


To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us

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GAS drives customer engagement and repeat visits with new loyalty programme

GAS is one of New Zealand’s largest independent fuel retail networks. In 2024, it took ownership of its loyalty programme by replacing the existing AA Smartfuel scheme with a new standalone loyalty offering.

Here’s how GAS implemented Infinity Loyalty to create more seamless mobile, forecourt and in-store experiences that engage customers, encourage repeat visits and increase share of wallet.


Key results

Lightning-fast loyalty revamp delivers impressive business results:

  • Launched a new loyalty programme in only 12 weeks 

  • Acquired 98% of previous loyalty scheme transaction volumes within one month of launch

  • Gained access to customer data for the first time in GAS’ 25 years of operations, giving a 360-degree view of customer behaviours to develop the personalised experiences customers now expect.


The challenge

GAS is investing in new technologies to modernise the customer experience and provide the speed, convenience and simplicity consumers increasingly demand. 

In late 2023, GAS started the process of replacing its long-standing loyalty scheme with a new programme. 

It’s third-party coalition loyalty provider – AA Smartfuel – had unexpectedly announced its closure, with the service ending on 31 January 2024. That meant GAS had only four months over the busy summer holiday season to exit AA Smartfuel and replace it with new programme. 

Nahid Ali, GAS General Manager, says that providing great customer experiences that drive growth throughout the fuel network was the priority. 

“With 28% of GAS’s sales volume going through the AA Smartfuel programme, we needed a compelling offering for these customers or risk losing them to the competition.”


A new loyalty strategy

GAS decided it needed its own solution as a platform for a complete view of customers and the ability to create more meaningful experiences via timely and relevant offers.  And to ensure future proofing, a platform with the flexibility to support addition of coalition schemes in future. 

Nahid says that a key goal for the new loyalty programme was to ensure they could continue to offer cents per litre discounting from 1 February 2024. 

“Kiwis are very motivated to make the trip to a fuel station when they know their loyalty will be rewarded with fuel discounts. They look forward to one-off ‘discount days’ when they can make real savings.  

“All the players in the fuel industry are offering discount-based campaigns. So, as a relatively small company, we didn't want to abandon this approach.” 

Nahid says a second key objective was to digitise the experience. “The new solution had to be delivered at point-of-sale and on our mobile app to lower the hurdle for customer adoption and make it fast and easy to use.” 


The solution

GAS considered a few loyalty platforms and selected Triquestra’s Infinity’s Loyalty module. 

GAS has partnered with Triquestra since 2020, using the Infinity unified commerce platform as its foundation for modernising the customer experience and managing point of sale transactions across 121 retail sites. 

“We have a very good relationship with Triquestra,” explains Nahid. “It’s a true partnership, and we are going from strength to strength. 

“In addition, Infinity Loyalty was exactly what we were looking for. It’s a mature platform with localised functionality and was the fastest and safest option for us to take.” 

The deployment was exceptionally quick says Nahid, taking only twelve weeks from contract to the launch of the new ‘Instant Discounts’ loyalty programme.  

“We held one initial meeting with the Triquestra team where I outlined what we faced and what we wanted to do,” explains Nahid.  

“The next thing I knew, Triquestra had taken us by the hand and led us through to the successful ‘go live’ on 1st of February. 

“It was remarkable. They did all the work to build the loyalty offering, integrate it with the app and deploy it by the go-live date,” Nahid says. “For an organisation to step up and deliver in such a short time is truly commendable.” 


Power of partnership

Nahid says Triquestra’s partnerships with leading fuel operators give the team a deep understanding of the fuel retail customer experience. 

“The Triquestra team have extensive fuel industry knowledge and experience, which was important for the success of the project. They knew what to do and they had people to help us plan and implement the project, swiftly. 

“Due to the tight timescales, the testing was completed in less than one week pre-launch. And the loyalty platform passed all the tests first time, which was just brilliant.”  

Nahid recognises the risk that comes with global vendors with offshore or indirect models of support. 

“Being local is another big advantage Triquestra offers. We can reach out to them during our working hours, unlike the overseas multinationals working in different time zones. They even had their team available to us on a public holiday just three days before go-live.” 

“They are genuinely good people who care about our business and are always there to help. And when they say they're going to do something, they do it.”   


The impressive results  

  • Loyalty volumes surge

Nahid explains that the decision to partner with Triquestra has paid immediate dividends. 

“It's now the end of the first month with Instant Discounts and we have captured an amazing 98% of fuel transaction volumes of the previous loyalty system which ran for three and a half years.” 

“Our volume has been consistently in line with what we were doing with AA Smartfuel because the loyalty platform is so simple and easy to use.”  

  • Ownership of customer data

By reclaiming ownership of its customer data from all channels and touchpoints – ranging from fuel selections to convenience items within stores – GAS can now recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop. 

“Previously, all our customer data was held by AA Smartfuel, but it’s now captured directly in Infinity Loyalty,” says Nahid.  

“We’re getting to know our customers for the very first time in our 25 years of operation.” 

GAS is using the data to develop a distinctive customer experience and boost loyalty. “We’re now looking at how to attract and grow our repeat customers on a week-by-week basis.” 

  • Omnichannel customer experience

GAS now has an omnichannel loyalty solution that works with plastic cards in stores and the mobile app.  

“During the planning stages, we were only looking at using the mobile app as our virtual loyalty card,” explains Nahid. “However, Triquestra helped us to quickly get a plastic card up-and-running as well. Within a period of four weeks, we had our own loyalty card made with barcodes and integrated with Infinity Loyalty and the mobile app.” 

Nahid adds while customers are signing with the mobile app, the plastic card is still a popular option. “Customers love the app, but the physical card has been a roaring success as well.” 

  • Stable hub and platform for CX innovation

By choosing a partner with a mature platform with the ability to customise functionality, GAS can focus on personalising the CX because all the critical functionality they need already exists. 

“It's a much easier solution to administer, and yet has all the functionality of a more complicated coalition loyalty system like AA Smartfuel.” 

Nahid explains that unifying loyalty with the backend systems has given them a complete package within the one platform. And it’s a solution built for their fast-paced, data-intensive environment where any level of downtime is unacceptable. 

“It’s secure. It's fast. It's very reliable. With our loyalty engine now directly integrated with our point of sale, the chances of the Instant Discounts going down or not working are very slim.” 

Nahid concludes by saying GAS now has a loyalty solution that will adapt and evolve to future business needs. 

“We are very fortunate, and I give full credit to the Triquestra team for supporting a small business like ours. This is going very well for us.” 


Interested in how GAS only took 12 weeks to deploy and launch its new loyalty programme nationwide? Get in touch.


 For more on how to modernise fuel retail loyalty and CX, check out our blog 👉  

Real-time inventory, stores and loyalty: Where retailers are investing in 2024 

Do you have a plan for technologies to invest in this year? And do you know where to focus your IT budget for maximum ROI? 

In our recent blogs, we asked if retailers were spending enough on their IT and, if not, how to make the case for increasing spend

If you’ve successfully navigated these stages to secure new budget and are now wondering where to start, here we look at retailers’ top spending goals for 2024 and the building blocks they’ve prioritised for maximum returns. 


We know that retailers are increasing their investments in new tech this year, with research showing that virtually all retail execs – an incredible 99% - predict increased spend. The growth in spend is sizable, with a 10% increase on average and nearly a quarter (23%) predicting 15% or more. 

When asked about their goals for their spend, most retailers (94%) ranked new technology as a significant driver for drawing in new customers, with 35% citing it as their main driver.  

And while ROI has always been important, these new tech investments are being held to an even higher standard. Enterprises now rank the ability to receive ROI within 6 months their second highest consideration (after ease of implementation). 

The metrics they’re using this year to gauge their success include increasing new customers numbers (54%) and retaining existing customers (47%). The amount customers spend is also scrutinised, with retailers looking for increased sales (48%) or cost savings (48%) that can be attributed to their tech investments.  


So we know that retailers are significantly increasing tech investments this year to create fresh, value-added customer experiences, but where are they focusing?  

There are three investment priorities in 2024: 

1. End-to-end inventory transparency 

Inventory visibility has always been important in retail. But with the proliferation of touchpoints and channels – both online and in-store – retailers now need to see a real-time view of all their inventory, right now.  

Without an accurate view of inventory, retailers are virtually guaranteed to interrupt the flow of an omnichannel shopping journey. If you don’t know the quantity of an item, where it is located, its current price nor status, you can’t offer the ‘buy anywhere, fulfil anywhere’ options that are best for customers and most profitable for you.   

With the average retail inventory accuracy at only 63%, that can mean problems with a whopping 2 in 5 orders. And as the customer journey continues to evolve to meet changing consumer demands, providing a seamless omnichannel experience will only get more difficult.  

The solution: Real-time inventory 

A unified commerce platform gives you a single, accurate and up-to-date view of all your inventory so you can be sure that you have the right product at the right place at the right time. 

That means you can quickly see where inventory is and make better decisions about what stock to order and how to make it available in your physical, mobile, online stores, DCs and call centres.   

You’ll improve inventory accuracy, reduce stock requirements, minimise fulfilment costs and get products to customers faster. And you’ll increase sales by using ranging and fulfilment capabilities that enable you to sell products across channels (and even sell products not normally stocked within any channels).   


2. Unleashing omnichannel experiences through stores 

For most omnichannel retailers, the growth of ecommerce has meant boosting their investments in physical retail. That’s because the store is essential to creating and satisfying customer demand - even if the customer ultimately transacts online. Consumers now see both the online and offline shopping experience as part of the same buying journey and not as one versus the other. 

With the ability to see, touch and feel products and assess alternatives, stores are important for marketing and customer acquisition. Store conversion rates are typically 20-40% - around ten times more than ecommerce channels (only 2.5-3%). The store remains the dominant sales channel, still generating more than 70% of sales. And while the shift towards online retail is real, physical retail is going to continue to grow at 4% year on year.   

But at a time when 75% of retailers can’t connect their online and in-store transaction data, they struggle to deliver the cohesive, consistent unified experiences customers now expect.  

The solution: Point of sale  

As you transform your stores to be the centre of your omnichannel experience, your retail systems must transform as well. POS systems are now the anchor for unified commerce platforms that unify online and store experiences with back-end systems so you can create holistic experiences across all customer touchpoints.   

That lets you create the elevated experiences customers now crave, by bringing digital convenience to stores, fulfilling orders via stores to increase profitability and delivering personalised and tactile in-store experiences.    

Unified commerce is now retail’s top priority, with 88% of retailers investing in unified commerce or considering doing so to make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future. Retailers who used unified commerce in 2022 saw a 7% revenue boost over those who did not.    


3. Attracting, scaling and earning more from loyal customers 

As inflation and cost-of-living increases put pressure on consumer spending, shoppers are becoming more discerning and deliberate, rapidly switching between brands in the search for bargains. That’s why customer retention has become an important strategy for retailers wanting to capture market share and maximise profits. Retaining customers costs less than acquiring new ones - customer acquisition costs have increased a whopping 222% in the past decade - and returning customers are more likely to spend than new customers.  

As more customers opt out of being tracked, retailers also need a compelling reason for consumers to be willing to identify themselves when they approach from different channels or touchpoints.  

On average, nearly two-thirds of US consumers belong to one-to-five loyalty programmes. However, most consumers use 50% or less of their memberships. So the challenge for retailers is developing engaging programmes that convert members into users and, in turn, create profitable loyalty.   

The solution: Loyalty 

With customer details captured and stored in single unified commerce hub, you can recognise customers consistently, wherever they shop with you. You’ll know which customers are most profitable and what their preferences are. Your store teams can view this information to offer personalised service and encourage conversion at point of sale. 

Looking ahead, large retailers are learning to drive customer loyalty and growth by pooling data within an ecosystem of brands. Multiple companies are tapping into their complementary product and service offerings to develop a joint loyalty programme around a unifying customer value proposition.  

Consumers will receive heightened experiential benefits in addition to faster loyalty rewards growth, more flexible redemptions and an unmatched simplicity and daily relevance. Retailers and brands will see a rise in reach and frequency of usage. They will gain access to richer, more privileged consumer data, shared infrastructure and cross-marketing opportunities.   


Want help to decide which tech innovation projects to tackle first? 

We can advise you on the key technology investments driving growth and customer loyalty this year. Just contact me at kelly.brown@triquestra.com or get in touch.   


For insights into how a unified commerce approach gives you the flexibility and agility you need to keep in step with consumers’ changing needs, download our ebook: