Understanding Friction Points in Retail
The way I see it, friction point is one of those words that’s used in fashion all the time. But it can be a little too broad for some people to really understand how it shows up in their businesses. When we talk about friction points, many don’t realise exactly how many could be present in their businesses because they think about large ones. So, here’s a little helpful clarification.
You know those little instances where a business you’re shopping from does something small, inconvenient or odd. That’s a friction point. These issues aren’t about being massive inconveniences like not stocking your size, but they still can make you feel unwelcome and undervalued as a customer. They could be anything from an online experience that doesn’t mention your account until checkout, when you have already entered your address and other information.
Or someone keeping the store closed even after opening hours have passed. Or even something as simple as getting your beverage order wrong if you are nearly always offered one. The thing about these issues is they are usually an amalgamation of multiple small issues in the shopping or browsing experience that ultimately makes customers feel uncomfortable, unwanted or dissatisfied.
It may not even actually bother them at the time or at all, but it could make them less likely to buy, which will obviously affect your business negatively. Friction points can add up and can have a real effect on retention rates as well. I think most retail businesses don’t realise just how many friction points are present within their offering because these friction points sit amongst positive experiences and become less noticeable.
I guess this makes sense since businesses will focus on positive experiences for obvious reasons - after all that’s what all retail research tells us to do. But ideally, fashion business owners and managers should also look at what isn’t working for customers so they feel taken care of too - which might not be so easy to identify at first blush (particularly when you’re looking out for them inside your own business).
Streamlining Checkout Processes
I Assume for some reason, streamlining the checkout experience gets everyone very excited. Yet most people seem to take the wrong approach with it. For so many, the idea is to create something that looks a certain way or follows what’s trending, but that doesn’t always work well for every store or every customer. It’s all about thinking through where your target audience is, what their preferences are, and how you can meet those preferences.
I’ve found that simply asking customers about their experiences with your checkout process can reveal a lot. In my experience, it’s almost always a conversation at the counter about “how nice” it is that there was something different or “that one thing that made it easier. ” And they don’t always say this explicitly.
Some of them are really shy about things like this. So there’s a lot of experimenting involved in getting checkout right for your store. The challenges tend to come from finding ways to balance cost efficiency and ease-of-use for the customer. But you also want to think about things like technology upgrades and inclusivity - some customers may be more able to pay using credit cards while others may use digital wallets more often.
Making things work out here isn’t always easy. More or less. Sometimes there are issues with infrastructure or tech or even simple processes like keeping cash in the till for people who prefer using cash. A combination of solutions can help - make sure you have enough counters open during rush hour but also think about how contactless payment options need to be integrated at your counters.
More on tech upgrades in a bit.
Enhancing Product Accessibility and Organization
I think most retailers, rather frustratingly, still believe that simply making their products visible is enough. And being able to see it means people will want it, right. Well, maybe.
But it doesn’t mean they’ll buy it - the problem lies deeper than that. There’s a huge difference between the overly ‘organized chaos’ of a store, as opposed to actual organization. While both give off an air of being cluttered and full of options - it’s about having products placed so well that even if they’re not in your field of view, you can find them with minimal difficulty.
Most stores miss the mark here and believe that putting everything together on a shelf or rack makes it all accessible. It’s not just about having multiple touch points for a potential purchase, either. More or less. There needs to be a relationship between different products and their placement in the store.
It seems like i think this is where most store owners get overwhelmed (and perhaps confused). Organizing a small retail store isn’t the same as organizing your home closet - there’s more planning that goes into this. Things like how customers are moving through the shop, what parts of your store they like spending time in, and what products are popular must be considered when making an accessible yet organized retail space. Of course, some things are always going to be complicated and difficult to change overnight.
If you already have existing displays or racks that work for your space and are fairly new, you might be hesitant about switching things around. However, sometimes these tough decisions make all the difference. So maybe don’t write off the idea without giving it some serious thought first.
Optimizing Store Layout for Customer Flow
The way I see it, many retailers approach shop design thinking one big open space is kind of enough. Or that any old layout will encourage customer movement. It’s not enough for products to be visible - customers also need to feel comfortable and have a sense of direction.
The placement of displays and fixtures should be considered in the context of how people interact with them. The right layout should encourage customers to browse comfortably and find the items they need with minimal frustration. If your store is cluttered, and your products are all over the place - it’s going to make finding things harder for a consumer.
Create space around aisles for shopping trolleys and baskets, minimise bottlenecks, and create open spaces that can accommodate more than one person at a time. No two stores are the same and there isn’t exactly a singular right way to go about designing yours for success. A cluttered and busy store can sometimes make a customer pick up something just because it’s on their way to what they want - leading to impulse purchases, but too much clutter can lead to decision fatigue in some shoppers, making them not want to buy anything at all.
The best thing is probably observing how your customers interact with your store layout - what draws their attention, where they linger the most, what sections are skipped or ignored most often, how they tend to flow through the aisles - and using that knowledge to improve your layout.
Leveraging Technology for a Seamless Experience
Tech in retail can occasionally go either way. People get it wrong all the time by thinking that putting in self checkouts or fancy digital mirrors is enough to make a brand feel fresh. It’s sort of like thinking you’ll get smarter because you have a tablet, but all you do is often play Wordle.
Every shop I know - from Coles to a jewellery store in the middle of nowhere - has some kind of touch screen or QR code thing. But that doesn’t mean their customer experience is any better. The way I see it, good technology is invisible, not intrusive. The best tech in a shop shouldn’t call attention to itself.
It should just work and make things easier for both customers and workers. For instance, QR codes have always been there and nobody cared for them, until lockdowns happened.
Sort of. All of a sudden everyone wanted to make everything contactless and there was no point in having paper menus on tables anymore. And now we take for granted that QR codes are everywhere - from restaurants to airports to banks to estate agents. What’s changed isn’t the tech itself, but how it became normal and expected.
I think the same thing needs to happen for other kinds of retail technology too, if people are going to accept it as part of shopping. It’s still such a new world for retailers to navigate and not every innovation actually helps anybody shop better or manage stores smarter.
Some choices - like self checkouts - are flat out wrong for certain brands and can alienate their audience more than making shopping easier or faster. But there are excellent tools that help with inventory management, automating repetitive tasks so people can focus on important stuff like customers, capturing leads and making it easy for potential buyers to ask questions online or book appointments in-store through WhatsApp or Instagram, etc. This is where omnichannel makes sense for brands who want to reach shoppers everywhere they might hang out - online or offline.
I do think Australian retailers are lagging behind when it comes to implementing tech that helps shoppers seamlessly move between worlds - especially compared to American retailers who seem more comfortable with tech that meets customers where they are.
Training Staff to Minimize Customer Frustration
People always assume that training retail staff will be this uniform, cookie-cutter thing - like you’re programming robots to smile, ring up the sale, and call it a day. In practice, it’s a bit messier. Everyone wants polite employees, but not everyone understands how much that politeness (and every other part of the job) depends on great training. People think it’s about product knowledge, but it’s so much more than that - it’s training your team for everything from handling customers with unique needs to dealing with complaints.
The reality is most customers have probably had some version of a less-than-pleasant experience with a business - whether its aggressive upselling or no one talking to them at all. Employees aren’t mind-readers and they shouldn’t have to be if they’re given clarity on what their role is. Building trust with new customers can be an uphill battle for even the best-trained employee if the business isn’t clear on what they want customer interactions to look like - beyond the generic “be welcoming”.
Training teams also means communicating customer feedback effectively. It means developing policies and then communicating those policies in ways that create positive experiences for both customers and staff. More or less. When you train your teams well, you can relatively leave them enough room to innovate while giving them boundaries for what excellent service looks like without restricting their creativity.
Some challenges feel trickier than others because it isn’t always clear if great service comes from rigid rules or flexible, creative problem solving. There isn’t always a straightforward way to train retail teams either - each brand brings its own sensibilities into the mix which means employees can sometimes carry over expectations from previous roles into new ones and that might not always be compatible with how you want your brand presented. The truth is there are many different correct approaches because no one person is ever going to respond positively to every approach - training helps you eliminate inconsistent bad actors so all your customers are treated equally but also makes sure your team feels confident enough to provide good experiences.
It’s about making sure everyone knows where they stand and how they’re expected to interact with every stakeholder involved in an organisation and communicate accordingly. This makes customers feel valued rather than just another random sale or complaint waiting to happen.