How Beacon Technology is Reshaping the eCommerce Industry

Last weekend, while my sister and I were passing by a store, her phone buzzed with a notification. ” Hurry! 50% off on winter collections.” She had to plunge the offer, and the next second I remember, she was inside the store.

But what made me roll my eyes was. As we kept shopping inside the store, even my smartphone kept buzzing with lucrative deals. Consequently, we ended up with a heavy shopping bill.

This whole process made me wonder, Is Beacon Technology among the other new trends in the eCommerce industry? How is it rooting this deep in the retail and eCommerce spectrum? If you’re wondering the same, let’s unravel this together:

What Is Beacon Technology?

We’re not talking about your favorite Bacon dish here. Instead, the beacon technology can undoubtedly be your ace if you are in the eCommerce business.

Beacons are small, wireless transmitting devices that employ Bluetooth low energy (BLE).  They send signals to nearby Bluetooth-enabled devices. They have taken center stage in location-based and Proximity marketing. However, it is not a new technology. For the past few years, they have been used as an indoor positioning medium and access to services. It includes distributing and managing assets, point of interest solutions, etc.

In layman’s terms, beacon technology connects and transfers information to intelligent appliances. It makes location-based search and interaction accessible and realistic.

Well, this latest technology seems to turn around heads. As users begin relishing its features and we witness the ripple effects with these numbers-

• Android devices pull more than 40 billion queries for beacon-related content from Google services every year.
• About 3.9 million out of 5.1 million proximity sensors deployed globally are beacons.
• The global beacon technology market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 45.5% during 2019-2024 to reach $ 10.2 billion by 2024

What makes beacons so appealing to eCommerce?

With the advancing numbers of cell phone owners and smartphones using consumers. Beacons provide extra possibilities to engage and connect those users. This is whenever they stand within the beacon’s range. Like lighthouses, but not light transmission, they send BLE signals that combine numbers and characters.

The Bluetooth enables smartphones to receive signals and display notifications sent by the eCommerce store. Beacon’s characteristics are similar to the website tracking and analytics tools. These are used by businesses to monitor the buying journey.  Additionally, they also show decisions involved by the customers and online visitors. The decision impacts their purchase from the eCommerce platform finally.

The rapid advancement of beacon technology in this industry is pulling the traditional marketers. Those who own physical stores also invest heavily in this channel.

Beacon use cases in e-commerce only businesses

Here are a few methods to use beacon technology in this category:

• Don’t shy away from welcome offers-

Install and leverage beacons at public places like shopping complexes. They communicate your welcome offers and prompt them to install and use your app.

• Send links about the printed advertising-

Install beacons near the billboards to push notifications and links. They direct for grabbing the ongoing offer on products exhibited at the billboard. These are digital CTAs to your physical advertisements.

• Get your app up from the nap-

Studies state, on average, 80- 90% of apps on android devices are used only once before uninstalling. By having beacons in action in public places, you can wake these apps to run even if they’re not in use.

• Amend the gaps between shopping channels-

E-businesses are moving omnichannel to sell their items. Beacon can combine the data collected from these channels. The combined data provides a concise, accurate understanding of consumer needs. In fact, it also shows what they go through before landing on their desired products. By leveraging this data, eCommerce businesses can push relevant promotional advertising.

Now that you understand the use cases, let’s turn towards the benefits of this technology to your online business-

Benefits of Considering Beacon Marketing in eCommerce

1. Better Advertising-

Why should advertising confine itself to television and radio? When everything is digitally skyrocketing? This is where beacon technology enters. Retailers can push customized messages and notifications to their users/ target audience. This will increase the number of visitors to their eCommerce site and sales too. Additionally, the beacon iOS technology helps retailers land the best time to send notifications to the target audience. It mitigates the chances of hollow marketing campaigns.

2. Personalized Interactions-

Chatbots empowered eCommerce retailers to deliver a more personalized experience to customer interactions. Beacons unlock fresh possibilities for online and offline retailers to make their marketing efforts more strategic and focused. It aids businesses with accurate, in-depth insights into consumer behavior. It analyzes their shopping history and sends relevant product recommendations, coupons, and discounts. This pulls them deeper into the marketing funnel and provides an engaging shopping experience.

3. Improved Google Business Listing-

Beacon Technology equips marketers with real-time online visitors to their website/mobile app. It opens opportunities for gaining customer reviews for the store and the specified product. They improve your brand’s SEO and the possibility of standing out from the curve.

4. More Affordability-

Beacon Technology is affordable for all eCommerce businesses compared to the other technologies reshaping the eCommerce diaspora. Furthermore, its easy-to-integrate setting makes it accessible for all eCommerce retailers willing to invest and work with it.

5. Increase in App Use-

We read how 80-90 percent of apps sit idle on your consumer’s phone before getting deleted or uninstalled. But with the notifications triggered with a beacon, the users stay prompt and reminded of the app’s existence on their phone. This increases the app’s CTR and promotes a dynamic expansion of the app’s engagement, visibility, and retention rates.

Final Thoughts- Is Beacon reshaping the eCommerce industry?

Though it’s of equal significance that the beacon technology, like any other technology, is not the holy grail for all customer engagement and management. It can upscale your customer outreach game altogether. And that made eCommerce businesses of all sizes, either the big giants or various start-ups, reply “yes” to the question. “If Beacon Technology is reshaping the eCommerce game all over.”