Get 10 million additional store sales with in-store apps

SportScheck: Digitization in stationary trade brings more profit

SportScheck uses digital technology to make its in-store business more profitable. The key to this is the sales staff. SportScheck Chief Digital Officer Jan Kegelberg reported on the success and failure of the SportScheck In-Store App during the ISPO Digitize Summit.

Tablets ensure more customer engagement

"We need more customer engagement in the store and more hands-on support for the sales force. That's why we need digitization at the POS. "What Jan Kegelberg means in his presentation at the ISPO Digitize Summit is not about equipping the POS with digital gimmicks, but on the contrary: At SportScheck , the digital tools help salespeople between customers and sales staff,

Picture credit: ISPO.com

The idea is plausible: with a tablet in hand, store salespeople gain real-time access to in-store inventories, warehouses and other stores, detailed product information, customer data, and many other services. The seller no longer has to disappear in the warehouse to search for products and leave the customer alone. He does not have to send him to any permanently installed terminal. He does not have to let him go unsatisfied because the desired size is not in the house.

He can devote his attention completely to the customer and his wishes.

Bonus cards are created digitally faster

This measure has brought the SportScheck branches more sales worth ten million euros last year. "The customer buys more because first of all he feels well advised and secondly because we can still sell products that are not available in-house to him," concludes Kegelberg.

The dealer was also able to generate even more customer data through the tablets: the creation of new loyalty cards was much faster with the tablets and in a personal conversation. Since the change management measures, around 130,000 loyalty cards have been rebuilt and 90,000 customer records updated.

First tray idea met with little enthusiasm

But as obvious as it sounds, the implementation was so difficult. At SportScheck, launching iPads on the floor is just the visible part of a comprehensive digitization strategy across the entire infrastructure that the company has been working on for several years. And as usual, everything does not work right away.

The first investments in the digital equipment of the stationary shops with kiosk terminals and webshop tablets for customers and sales staff already took place in 2011. But instead of enthusiasm, SportScheck was mainly disinterested.

Webshop solution was not suitable for customers at the POS

Kegelberg: "It quickly became clear that the webshop solution was neither suitable for the sales staff nor for the customers. The seller lacked important features and it was awkward. It signaled to the customer, 'Nice that you came - but now watch how you get along. And: Actually you could have stayed at home on the sofa and ordered. ' Of course that was psychologically the wrong message! "

CasperWhite in-store app in use since 2015

SportScheck therefore invested in the development of its own in-store app, which was implemented by CaperWhite . Since 2015 she is used in the stores.

New technologies require change management

However, just programming a good app is not enough. You also have to find ways to make their benefits tasty to sales staff. Kegelberg: "We brought the tablets on the surfaces and waited for what happened: Nothing happened."

Even classical training has not brought the expected success. In order to change the way of working and develop new skills, it was necessary to invest in change management processes and to create incentives for the staff.

Sales via the in-store app, for example, must go to the account of the seller, not the webshop. "Otherwise, the seller has little interest in selling through the app," says Kegelberg. Even playful ideas would have worked well, such as a sales battle between the stores.

Coming in 2018: payment function via in-store app

About 150 times a day, sellers scan the barcodes of products to retrieve content. About 300 orders are generated per day via the in-store app, "with only half the return rates as in the online shop," says the digital chief.

In the hands of sales staff, the in-store app has become a powerful tool. Therefore, one is now ready to go the next steps. Thus, more and more services are included in the app: from the ski rental in the holiday region on the booking of yoga classes at affiliated studios to the payment function. SportScheck wants to introduce them later this year and is already building service stations in the shops, where shopping bags and receipts can be picked up.

The introduction of the in-store app was tedious and also "painful", says Jan Kegelberg, but strategically necessary. "Although we have not yet developed a complete picture of what we can do with the app, and what services we can still integrate, we have created the conditions for the future." In the long term, this service will allow more products and novel products Assortment for sale, without having to grow the real retail space.