By focusing on mobile, the retailer is leading the way
Auchan, one of Ukraine’s biggest retailers, has leapfrogged many other retailers in the region with its embracing of mobile tech. Two projects have thrust it to the fore: its use of proximity marketing and the roll out of its MyAuchan app.
To take the latter first, the retailer worked with technology company Phoceis to design and produce ‘MyAuchan’, a retail app that, while not the most sophisticated on the market, certainly gets people using it.
First up, the app is run not only in customer phones, but also on terminals in the store so that everyone can use it. And one of its key features is geo-location in-store of products. This was rolled out in 2015 and led the way to the retailer’s proximity marketing coup, more of which shortly.
The MyAuchan app also features Flash’n Pay, a mobile payment solution and wallet set up by Banque Accord and the company has also worked into the app a connected shopping list. Here the user just scans a product QR code and adds products to the list. The list can also be synchronised across other people’s apps – presumably family and friends, rather than strangers – without prior registration so even if you have sent cousin Josef to the store you can still tell him to get milk.
While Auchan’s app is proving popular with its customers, the retailer itself is seeing great success with using mobile to deliver the relatively new concept of proximity marketing.
Auchan needed a way to direct shopper flow and attention to offers throughout its 18,000 m2 stores, as well as ramping up customer engagement while in-store – increasing both brand loyalty and sales.
The company management also wanted to take marketing metrics to the next level. There was a major information gap. Auchan lacked insight into customers’ offline behaviour at the store, as well as user-grained statistics on each client’s interests and wants. So Auchan partnered with Leantegra and deployed Proximity Marketing that leveraged the technology for highly targeted location-based advertising with 180 WiBeat BLE beacons being installed throughout the store – at the end of each aisle.
This installation enabled ‘Proximity Location Analytics’ to be gathered, showing management the shopper location data, such as the time a shopper stays in a given aisle and a zone’s popularity, detailing how many people with the Auchan mobile app stay in a particular area.
In addition, using the Leantegra Android SDK, Leantegra’s tech team developed a testing Proximity Marketing app for Auchan. The app allows the retailer to direct store traffic and draw customer attention to special offers, making shopping a more engaging and interactive experience.
Once a customer enters the store, they can start getting notifications with special offers based on their location and product preferences. When a customer sees an offer they like, they click on it, and the app displays the discount coupon details and the item’s location with a map pin. This ensures shoppers don’t miss attractive deals. Everything is designed to be super-intuitive. To see all items currently on sale, a customer just has to click on the ‘Offers List’ icon.
After Auchan rolled out the solution at one of its Kiev stores, it managed to reach more than 5000 downloads of the Proximity Marketing app. According to the store’s statistics, customers who use the app spend twice as much per visit than those who do not use it.
In addition, having gained access to Proximity Marketing Campaigns and User-grained Analytics, Auchan is now able to create more effective messages, as well as tailor the marketing strategy based on client’s’ response to different campaigns.
