Storytelling has always been a part of human communication. We use stories to share experiences and connect with each other emotionally. The power of storytelling has also been harnessed effectively by retailers to connect with their customers and create a strong emotional bond that drives purchase decisions and engagement. A retailer’s brand story can be a powerful tool that helps tap into this connection and builds customer loyalty.
In today's environment, where there is so much noise and competition for attention, retailers need to find a way to stand out and win the battle for attention. The best way to do this is by creating relevant and engaging content that tells a story which resonates with customers and is integrated across all touchpoints along the customer buying journey. The focus should be on creating and sharing content that is meaningful, aligns with what consumers care about and is not always related to promoting products or actively selling.
However, it is not enough to simply tell a story or articulate a thoughtful brand promise; retailers must also show it with a product assortment that aligns with their brand and speaks to the consumer. Using data analytics and insights, retailers can determine the types of products and categories that their customers are interested in and curate and personalize their product selection and recommendations to the individual. This means getting more specific attributes and details from suppliers and optimizing product content so that customers can always find what they are searching for.
Today's consumers are searching for increasingly specific items, and retailers must be able to surface the right products from a larger network of suppliers while making them easily accessible to the right customers. Retailers cannot rely on a traditional retail (wholesale) model to achieve this. Instead, they need ecommerce capabilities that can increase and curate selection at scale. Drop ship and marketplace capabilities can leverage flexibility and speed in a way that limits risk to the retailer because they do not need to hold inventory. This is especially important during times of economic uncertainty like we are experiencing now. Ecommerce also helps retailers expand upon physical assets and connect customers with brands that may be digitally native or do not wholesale.
By more effectively using ecommerce capabilities based on data-driven insights, retailers can build agile and flexible brand partnerships and pivot quickly to tell a richer story that is right for their brand and demonstrate it with more products curated for their customers. This delivers added value to the consumer and enables retailers to show up in a bigger and better way by offering more choice.
Storytelling and product curation are important components of a retailer's brand story.
By creating a strong emotional connection with customers and offering a personalized product assortment that aligns with their brand promise, retailers can increase customer loyalty and sharpen their competitive advantage. Ecommerce capabilities such as drop ship and marketplace can help retailers curate selection at scale, expand upon physical assets and build agile and flexible brand partnerships that enable them to show up for customers in a bigger way by offering more choice. And that is certainly a story worth telling.
