LIMA Mind Mix Presentation, Berlin - Christophe Macht BRANDORA

Retail has to get mobile!
Attracting new customers, retaining existing customers, boosting sales and generating a steady stream of revenues… Those are the key tasks retail sale faces today. If we have a look at pedestrian zones and shopping streets we still see lots of people every day. Are all of them potential customers for retail sale? I say: Yes. Yes, if you keep up-to-date and fetch them where they stand. Almost every single one of them carries a smartphone or a tablet. The modern consumer looks at many shop windows, but only a few of them really have a fixed address. Digitally oriented customers are no longer a minority. They are constantly searching for, updating, exchanging, and comparing information: at home, on the road, in the pedestrian zone, in front of the shop window and even inside your store!
Modern customers know their own mind!
More than 60% of all buying decisions are prepared online - first surfing, then shopping!. That is why the internet should become the shop window of traditional retail!

From PoS to PoE
Retail in Germany has long followed the rule: “The customer is king – the customer is always right” … “They are not your enemies”, today we should expand the rule. Retail has long failed to accompany their customers. Today, it is not enough to just sell products! The seller who simply waits behind the counter for customers to find the way to their shop will soon not have any counter to hide behind. Why on earth should the customer come to their shop, when they find so many other, more attractive alternatives out there?
The internet is able to do almost anything, but traditional shops also have some major advantages. The summary of those advantages is: EMOTIONS! Retail as a mere point of sale is outdated – retail has to provide a point of emotions to play their trump cards.
Sensory experiences trigger emotions, 3D is stronger than 2D where you just swipe and click. Well-versed, friendly expert staff cannot be replaced digitally. If you play those trumps professionally, the PoS becomes a PoE. But you still have other trumps up your sleeves – Why should traditional retailers not be able to benefit from the advantages of e-commerce and use them for themselves?

The customer journey begins miles away from your shop door
Pick up your customer and guide their buying decisions. A deep understanding of the complete customer journey is an essential condition for success in retail. The customer journey consists of all touchpoints where consumers interact with a product, a brand, and a retailer. The journey to the product might well begin in the depth of the internet and should lead to the website of a local retailer and thus to a local shop. Maybe an advert or a newsletter might serve as a sign post…
Indirect touchpoints that share the opinions of third parties on a brand, a product, or a service rapidly grow in importance. This applies to review sites, user forums, blogs, and social media in general.
What we have to keep in mind: Customers want to and have to be picked-up from wherever they are!

Kiosk terminals make more sense than ever before
Multimedia and multichannel consulting and digital product presentation ideally support customers and staff through the buying and selling process. Due to highly intuitive handling via touchscreen kiosk terminals enjoy ready acceptance among today’s costumers. Kiosk systems build a bridge between virtual reality and real-life sales talks. They take the advantages of the internet and all information necessary for a buying decision to the location where the customer really needs them: to the traditional shops. In addition, the customers also benefit from the face-to-face guidance of your well-versed expert staff.
In connection with effective inventory control and a content-management system kiosk systems always keep up-to-date. To be really successful and to fulfil their role at the PoE, website and terminal have to be linked and integrated into an overall concept of multichannel strategies.
>What is more, the terminals might also provide on-top services, including customer retention tools, virtual gift lists, drop shipping, audio book downloads ... and even products that are currently not available in shops (due to limited capacity, storage space, capital commitment) – tagged as available for ordering.

High quality product data is the key to success
The search for information is one of the main reasons for the rapidly increasing use of the internet. In order to make product information available at just a few clicks and thus to truly benefit from informative websites, product data has to be provided and presented in a user-friendly and – above all – search engine-friendly way.
Product data feed optimization rapidly gains increasing importance. It is essential to complete, standardize, and structure online-specific data. Even the best of all search engines can only find that data which are available. Products soon become shelf warmers if relevant data are not ideally entered and stored.
High-quality product data is correct/accurate, complete, up-to-date and easy-to-understand for customers and the algorithms of marketing partners. Mere product master data are sufficient for inventory management, but they are far from good enough to convince customers and win them over. In addition, never underestimate the importance of high-quality product images. Those powerfully influence buying decisions.
Quality does not only mean that you provide data in a correct form, you also have to keep them up-to-date. Only if you continuously transfer updated data feeds optimizing measures produce maximum effect.

BRANDORA provide retail with up-to-date solutions
BRANDORA maintains world’s most comprehensive database with profiles of almost 300,000 products, featuring clearly defined criteria and illustrated by up to 700,000 images. High-quality data is clearly arranged, classified and categorized. BRANDORA and THOMAX Media provide retail with up-to-date solutions that take changing buying behaviour into account. Tools combine the opportunities of the internet with the strengths of traditional retail. They help to expand the shop window and take the brick-and-mortar store to the internet to pick up the customers where they stand/are.
Data stock and images are readily available for customers. We create a 100% responsive web appearance tailor-made to retailer’s needs and linked to their inventory management. Therefore, only those items can be found online that are currently available. Popular options on offer are expansions for online shops: click & collect, kiosk terminals or advertisement and newsletter.

BRANDORA
BRANDORA is THE internet portal for information on toys, brands, products, and licensed properties. In addition to their websites, the company provides a four-pillar portfolio of B2B services for the toy and licensing industry:

1. Licensing: The internet site www.brand-licensing.de, operated by BRANDORA GmbH is an internationally unique instrument to find information on properties and brands. With just a few clicks (potential) licensees and other interested parties may find contact data of all rights’ owners, leading licensing agencies in Germany, a complete overview of more than 1,100 licensed properties and app. 30,000 licensed products. On www.brand-licensing.com BRANDORA established an English platform to meet the requirements of the continuing internationalization of the industry.
2. Data: BRANDORA maintains world’s most comprehensive database with “profiles” of more than 300,000 products. In addition, BRANDORA has compiled a directory of more than 6,500 business professionals. The cross-linked database makes brandora.de a “virtual toy fair” and the most important internet portal for the national and international toy business.
3. Editorial staff: The weekly BRANDORA newsletters on toys and licenses are the most popular information media for business professionals from both sectors. The BRANDORA editorial staff operates and updates both platforms on a daily basis and their up-to-date online news ticker reaches more than 9,300 stakeholders every day.
4. Consulting: In cooperation with Linssen & Rausch Business Consultants Bonn/Düsseldorf BRANDORA Consult provides qualified industry-relevant business consulting and personnel placement services.