iRetail – Itim’s Smartphone (iPhone) Application for Retailers
Itim’s ‘iRetail’ application for iPhone and other smartphones, is designed to be adopted at low cost and very quickly by retailers wanting to communicate in an unobtrusive way with their customers.
It can be tailored by retailers to their specific needs allowing their branding and their functions to exist alongside standard out of the box applications.
iRetail is more than just a mobile application, it is a CRM system, a loyalty card and a promotions management system, and a communication system all in one application.
It is designed to work on the principles of permission marketing. Essentially it allows the consumer to engage with a retailer, without surrendering their identity until they are ready to do so.
It allows the retailer to communicate with their customer without cluttering their emails and appearing to spam them.
Retail Passport is an identity number (bar code) downloaded to the consumer’s phone, the moment they download an application. The number is unique to each retailer and it can even be their existing customer code. When a customer presents this at any check out the Retail Passport can be entered or scanned, and the transaction identified with the customer.
iRetail provides the following functions - any of which can be used or adopted by a retailer in their implementation
- Send receipts to the phone (essentially saving the need to print a receipt), reducing the environmental impact of paper receipts
- My Purchases – an ability to record information against a purchase to be shared (or not) with the retailer
- What’s New – new product alerts, which can be tailored to link to what the customer has purchased
- Promotions – a promotions voucher is sent and stored on the phone until the next time the consumer shops with the retailer
- Loyalty – the consumer can check and redeem their loyalty points
- Communications – sending bulletins and announcements to the customer
- E-commerce – ability to reserve or book products for collection
- Registration – allowing the consumer to register their personal details with the retailer
Benefits for the Retailer
Most retailers will be lucky to achieve 20% penetration on their loyalty programmes. The iRetail application will allow this level of penetration to increase significantly, by using a combination of disparate retail applications to target consumers directly on their mobile phone.
Benefits for the Consumer
Applications are less intrusive than traditional mobile communications, such as text messaging and voicemail.
With iRetail the consumer is able to communicate with retailers, and receive the benefits of electronic receipts, tracking purchases, promotions and loyalty points.
In the advanced version, they will be able to look at new products and order or reserve product for in-store collection.
We believe such smart phone applications will become the default communication gateways between retailers and consumers.
For more information, please email us or call on +44 (0) 207 598 7700.
