How Indoor Mapping Can Boost Conversions in Retail

In a world seemingly dominated by eCommerce, traditional retailers must fight harder than ever to maintain modern-day consumers' attention, loyalty, and affection. Indoor mapping is the game-changer brick-and-mortar retailers have been waiting for. 

Forbes predicts that eCommerce sales will skyrocket to $8.2 trillion by 2026. Shoppers might be returning to buying in-store, but eCommerce isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But brick-and-mortar retailers have a unique edge over their strictly digital counterparts in that they can provide shoppers with the exceptional in-store experiences they’re looking for — the kind of experiences that motivate conversions.

Those great experiences might be why shoppers are likely to venture to a store for items they need rather than immediately buying online. In fact, studies show that while 26% of consumers make online purchases once a week, more than 40% make in-store purchases once a week. This gives retailers an incomparable competitive advantage over eCommerce options: real-time experiences.

If companies want to unlock the full potential of positive consumer experiences, they should strongly consider implementing digital indoor mapping. Indoor mapping provides the convenience, speed, and consumer experiences that today’s shoppers crave. Retailers can leverage those major benefits to boost conversions in retail and stay ahead of competitors in today’s fast-paced marketplace.

Here are the top three ways indoor mapping can enhance physical retailers’ conversion rates:

1. Optimizing product wayfinding and placement

Indoor maps help consumers find the products they’re looking for with ease. The faster shoppers can access the products they need, the better. Research shows that 82% of shoppers mark convenience as extremely high on their list of values. As many as 40% rank it as their number one decision-making factor.

Additionally, when retailers host their digital indoor maps on an application, they can leverage the collected consumer data and conduct analytics that reveal common traffic patterns and popular routes in-store. 

Access to that data helps store managers identify what products are typically bought together within a single trip, allowing them to optimize where inventory is throughout the store. Additionally, this data can show when customers are looking for products out of stock, which helps inventory managers stay on top of restocks.

A well-organized store can encourage further consumer exploration and increase the chances of multiple sales. Shopify reports that 81% of Gen Z shoppers prefer to shop in stores for the specific purpose of finding new products.

2. Improving shopper-employee connections

Digital indoor maps allow for the seamless wayfinding and navigation that today’s consumers expect. They also provide a wayfinding solution for employees, who can utilize digital maps and blue dot navigation to seamlessly move through physical locations, even those with sprawling product warehouses. 

This capability can help facilitate faster product location, order fulfillment, stock picking in back store rooms, and real-time customer service, which is a game changer in building loyalty from modern shoppers. 

Customer service matters. Salesforce reports that 80% of shoppers will switch brands after only three bad experiences. Conversely, retailers can see enhanced conversions from shoppers who’ve built loyalty from positive experiences. Shoppers who join loyalty programs are 28% more likely to buy.

3. Bridging experiences with omnichannel engagement

Indoor mapping can help seamlessly integrate any retailer’s omnichannel strategy, which is critical to success in today’s retail marketplace.

Going omnichannel is essential for retailers hoping to stay competitive. CapitalOne found that 73% of retail customers are omnichannel shoppers, meaning that a multi-layered approach to engagement is critical. 

It’s safe to say that any tactic that more than doubles basket value on average is a method worth retailers investigating. Well, that’s exactly what indoor mapping does. That same CapitalOne report states that omnichannel customer engagement increases sales (on average) 179% more than companies that do not implement omnichannel strategies.

One critical reason why indoor mapping can create omnichannel experiences that make conversions happen is that it enables retailers to push real-time notifications to shoppers while they’re in-store. When these notifications come at the right place and time for the right product, it can create a perfect scenario that increases the chances of conversion.

Retailers can access consumer behavioral data via indoor mapping, which allows them to track what products or departments shoppers linger around the most or frequently purchase from. Applying that data to push notifications can dramatically increase conversions when they consider the following:

• Who are the notifications being sent to?
• Where in the store are they being sent?
• When during a shopper’s journey are they received?

When retailers leverage indoor mapping to address those critical questions, they can foster meaningful in-store experiences that drive greater consumer lifetime value and optimize conversions.

For more information about leveraging in-app data from indoor maps, check out our Store Mode Guide.

Get a Win-Win with Indoor Mapping

Indoor mapping has the potential to initiate a transformative impact on the experience of shopping in-store. When retailers leverage the power of advanced digital mapping (and the analytics it unlocks), they can provide the seamless, personalized experiences that today’s consumers demand and value — which also happen to be the ones that motivate the most conversions.

Indoor mapping isn’t only a boon for winning out with shoppers. It’s also helpful at keeping employees productive. Learn more here.