While digital platforms have been demonstrating for years how profitable data-driven advertising can be for e-commerce, suppliers and customers, the topic is now also becoming a relevant growth area in bricks-and-mortar retail. It is precisely at this interface that shopfitting will also undergo lasting change.
Retail Media as a new profit centre
As part of the German Shopfitting Association's „Digital Lunchbox“, this development was categorised in a compact online session. The recording offers a practical overview of how retail advertising is changing into a profit centre.
Retail media is becoming a lucrative source of revenue in its own right. Platforms such as Amazon have been demonstrating the economic potential of advertising revenue for years. In bricks-and-mortar retail, too, structures are increasingly emerging that enable additional sales - often with significantly higher margins than in the traditional retail business.
However, this often results in an abbreviated understanding of the term. In many places, retail media is reduced to digital signage. In fact, this view falls short. Screens are just one part of a much larger communication ecosystem. The decisive factor is the interaction of all contact points in the store - from shelf space and special placements to digital services along the entire customer journey.
Retail media is more than just digital signage
This also changes the role of shopfitting. Sales areas are no longer designed without taking into account the aspect of advertising marketing to suppliers or third parties. The store is thus developing into a networked communication space in which physical and digital elements intertwine. Individual measures fall short. Only the integration of different formats and systems creates sustainable added value.
Data is becoming a key success factor
The main driver of this development is the increasing availability of data. What has long been established in e-commerce is also finding its way into bricks-and-mortar retail: customer interactions are becoming more measurable, processes can be controlled more precisely and communication measures can be played out in a more targeted manner. This opens up new opportunities - but requires that space, content and technological systems are considered together.
Successful retail media is integrated into the shopping experience
Despite all the dynamics, the following also applies: more advertising does not automatically lead to a better customer approach. A cluttered store can quickly have the opposite effect. Successful retail media integrates itself into the shopping experience instead of dominating it. If this balance is achieved, retailers, brands and customers benefit equally.
Retail media is therefore less a short-term trend and more a structural change in retail. For shopfitting, this means a significant change: away from pure space design and towards an integral part of the communication, data and revenue strategy in stationary retail.
Recording of the „Digital Lunchbox“: Watch YouTube recording
About the author
Dr Frank Thiedig is an agricultural economist and a recognised expert in retail media and data-driven retail marketing in the food retail sector. In leading positions at EDEKA Minden-Hannover, he was responsible for the strategic development of marketing, POS communication and data-based marketing. Most recently, he was Managing Director of Marketinggesellschaft Baden-Württemberg (MBW). His focus is on the dovetailing of retail media, product range and quality as the basis for effective brand management in retail.
Further information:
Online Software AG
Galileistrasse 1
69115 Heidelberg, Germany
info@online-software-ag.de
www.online-software-ag.de
Sandy Heinzmann
Head of Marketing
T. +49 06221 40508-682
M. +49 151 1500 9975
sandy.heinzmann@online-software-ag.de