Geofences: retail's key to success in the post pandemic era

Victory over the pandemic is slowly being achieved as businesses reopen up their doors to the public. However, despite the coronavirus loosening its grip on our world, consumer trends have shown that online shopping is here to stay, especially for sectors concerning retail: Accessories, makeup, books, electronics, and entertainment.

With Roam.ai's geofences, retail and department stores can confidently face this new era of shopping.

What is a geofence?

By definition, a geofence is a virtual geographical boundary that allows marketing and location services to send relevant notifications upon entering said boundary. These notifications can be anything from advertisements to understanding consumer trends. When done right, incorporating this software into your business can significantly improve customer turnout as well as profit.

For retail businesses, the uses of geofences are three-pronged: analyze, advertise and act.

For a more general overview on geofencing, check out our blog post "What is geofencing and how can it benefit your business".

Analyze

In order to maximize business potential, understanding your customers' trends is essential.

The basic trends geofences can analyze:

• Geofence Events: when a user enters or exits your geofence, you will receive a notification allowing you to accurately pinpoint the exact time a customer enters and exits your store.
• Time spent: These entry and exit times will allow you to accurately calculate how long a customer spends at the store, information that can be applied to detecting busiest hours and guide retailers towards more critical areas of improvement.

Retail businesses can build on these basic trends to discern the effectiveness of their advertisement campaigns, improve physical foot traffic and even increase customer loyalty with personalized offers. For instance, when a new product is launched, consumer behavior analysis will clarify which customers should be targeted to guarantee profit and build trust.

Advertise

With a detailed understanding of consumer trends, businesses can now advertise accordingly.

Target Advertising: Target advertising or geotargeting is one of the most popular advertising techniques using geofences and the best technique for retail.

1. Advertisements: Developers can set up geofences in the vicinity of your business, so when a customer enters the area, you can send notifications. You can also set up geofences around billboards. Not only will users receive a memorable visual experience, but they will also have the information on their phones. This can either immediately attract customers to your store, or remind them to go online and order some products later!
2. Promotions: Customers are always looking for new sales and promotions, to get enough bang for their buck. Take a look at Black Friday: millions of people are aware of these exclusive discounts, leading to major customer turnout and, ultimately, major sales. By using Roam.ai's geofences to send relevant information about these promotions, customers will immediately be attracted to your business.
3. Competitors: You can also use geofences to get customers from nearby competitors. For instance, by establishing a geofence in the area of a rival business, developers can send notifications to users with information about better deals and opportunities, thereby luring customers to your own business.

An example of a successful geofencing campaign

GAP is one of the most popular clothing stores in the world. Part of its success can be directly attributed to geofencing marketing.

They placed geofences around bus stops near their stores, so once users entered the virtual boundary, their phones immediately pinged with advertisements and the latest deals.

Thanks to geofences, the mobile clickthrough rate of their ads skyrocketed to an average of 0.93% from the standard 0.2%.

Roam.ai's geofence offering for retail

Roam.ai offers unlimited circular and polygon geofences, allowing retailers to cover a wide range of areas: buildings, billboards, bus stops, parks etc. Thanks to these features, the opportunities to attract customers and widen the scope of business are endless.

Roam.ai's Get Nearby APIs

Roam.ai's Nearby APIs provide users with a list of geofences that can reveal the nearest clothing store or department store, saving valuable time and money. When it comes to shopping, developers can add filters to their search engine to direct users to the store. Moreover, thanks to Roam.ai's customization features, developers can include various information within the geofence such as parking availability, opening and closing times, foot traffic etc.

Check out our brand-new geofence product documentation for more details!

Act now!

Society is inching towards a virtual reality world as technology continues to persist. Therefore, retail stores must adapt in order to ensure a successful business in this new era of shopping.

If Roam.ai's quality geofences are for you, Discord server!

Still have questions? Feel free to reach us anytime on our .

Sources

• https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-great-consumer-shift-ten-charts-that-show-how-us-shopping-behavior-is-changing#
• https://www.theverge.com/2012/3/13/2867288/gap-titan-geofencing-location-based-ad-campaign

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