The customer journey at a glance

A recurring theme at Paris Retail Week, which takes place from 19 to 21 September, Porte de Versailles (15th), omnichannel is taking root in retailers. Against a backdrop of weak purchasing power and as artificial intelligence is becoming more widespread, retailers will personalize consumers’ customer journeys, using their fingers (smartphone) and their eyes (digital POS, websites).

Two rooms, two atmospheres but the same questions about the interactions between physical commerce and digital, as well as how to optimize the points of contact with consumers. At the South by Southwest show, held in Texas last March, there was talk of on-board commerce that allows you to shop without taking your hands off the wheel. “This “in-vehicle commerce” is emerging in the country where cars are sold and makes it possible to value the time spent in your vehicle, an average of 60 minutes per day per person,” says Nicolas Diacono, technology trend analyst at the BNP Paribas Personal Finance Exchanger.

In France, conversations will undoubtedly take place at the Paris Retail Week, which takes place from 19 to 21 September, on two major events of the past weeks. First, the end of the automatic printing of paper receipts, since August 1st. The decision of certain brands (Casino, Monoprix, Franprix, E. Leclerc) to stop distributing paper leaflets in customer mailboxes continues to be debated. These decisions could boost the continuous digital transformation of points of sale and the rise of the «phygital», guaranteeing consumers a seamless experience between the physical and digital channels of the brand.

Replace the sales receipt

Among the existing companies to remedy the issue of the disappearance of the receipt, KillBills has this of original that it avoids the customer to make an action to dispose of it. No email to communicate or need to access a dedicated application by scanning a QR code or link to a loyalty account, the start-up says it has created a friction-free solution. “When the customer is at the checkout, they pay by credit card and the ticket goes directly to their bank account,” says Sid-Ahmed Chikh-Bled, co-founder and president of the company. “ Our solution reconciles the commercial name of the debtor with the legal wording that is often unrelated to the debtor.” Operating with artificial intelligence, KillBills has signed two agreements with digital banks and has a thousand partners, between non-food store chains and restaurant chains. «With the dematerialization of the receipt, there are possibilities for brands to offer extensions of the offer, to personalize content and to imagine new services for consumers», says Nicolas Diacono.

Ultra-personalization of the customer experience

As for the disappearance of prospectuses, which always concerns more than one French in three (study of the firm NielsenIQ of December 2022), how to overcome the absence of this once essential communication medium? “The goal is to go towards ultra-personalization of the customer experience, which will make the difference,” says Romain