QR codes have seen wide-scale adoption in international markets but they’ve never really gained adoption in the US. The technology has been around since the early ‘90s but it never lived up to the hype and was dismissed as a marketing gimmick—until now. COVID-19 has been the great accelerator, and QR codes are having their moment. The perfect touch-free solution, QR codes have become fully integrated into our COVID contactless existence.
Beauty retail has always been a high-touch, consultative, and experiential category heavily reliant on testers, product application, and sampling. What retail was going to look like post-lockdown was top of mind for beauty brands. The coronavirus may have upended beauty retail as we knew it; let’s be honest—sampling and testers were long overdue for a hygienic overhaul.
As the industry is innovating to create touch-free environments, consumers are making their way back to physical stores, but they are tentative—mission shopping is the new normal for now. While foot traffic may be way down, we’ve heard multiple reports that basket sizes are larger. When consumers decide to enter a store they are there to buy and they want the visit to be fast. We also learned that when shopping in person, many consumers are feeling less confident buying items that have been tried on or handled by fellow customers.
Hero is one of those retail technology platforms that is operating behind the scenes redefining the future of retail. Credo and Deciem, both early adopters of the platform, kept their store teams working doing the shutdown, shifting them online doing virtual consultations and digital selling. In July the company said their beauty partners saw a 41 percent increase in online conversions, and sales through Hero accounted for up to 15 percent of their total revenues.
The company is now launching a new QR code function that provides a contactless in-store experience while creating a connection with the store associate. The Hero tools convert in-person shoppers into e-commerce customers, making it easy for them to buy online worry-free, while still getting the credit for the sale.
Hero founder Adam Levene said of the new launch, “When developing Hero’s new contactless functionality, the beauty industry was top of mind because shoppers want the expertise they get in-store with the assurance that the products they’re buying are safe and haven’t been handled by other customers. Our first-of-its-kind QR code feature solves this problem, while making it easy for store associates to stay in touch with customers and make additional product recommendations—two things that are the essence of a high-quality in-store experience.”
Scan. Shop. Buy. Here’s how it works:
When a customer in-store is interested in an item, the store associates can search for a product in the Hero app and present a unique QR code to the shopper. The customer can then scan the QR code with their own phone in a contactless way.
Once scanned, shoppers are taken directly to the product page where they can browse and buy after leaving the store. Sales attribution means stores and associates are always credited for e-commerce sales made by a customer who started their purchase journey in-store.
Store teams also have access to the entire online selection in-app—not just products available in-store. That means associates can provide a wider range of product recommendations at a time when the supply chain is unpredictable and not every item is available in-store.
Customers can also keep the conversation going by chatting and video-shopping with the associate that assisted them at the tap of a button from the product page, ensuring a personalized shopping experience all the way through to purchase.
The technology also allows for clienteling built-in—store associates can stay in touch with shoppers by text, growing loyalty and customer lifetime value long after the first store visit.
As the physical and digital merge, the future of beauty retail may be fueled by technology, but platforms like Hero also unleash the power of beauty advisors. Technologies like this provide them with the tools to foster relationships with consumers where, when, and how they want to shop, truly creating an omnichannel experience.
