Regent Street app yields in-store results, implications for high streets elsewhere

Photo courtesy of Regent Street

London’s Regent Street has seen an uptick in consumer engagement and in-store purchases after the high street adopted a dedicated mobile application.

The Regent Street shopping app aggregates exclusive and personalized content for shoppers based on user-generated profiles tailored by individual consumers’ preferences and likes. In addition to consumer profiles, the app, powered by autoGraph.me, relies on beacons to provide users with personalized shopping.

“The Regent Street app is a platform to enhance the visitor experience to one of London’s most iconic shopping streets,” said Henry Lawson, CEO/co-founder of autoGraph.me.

“The mobile app is one of many tools they have in their arsenal to make this happen,” he said. “We have been very excited to see mobile and physical commerce coming together. For clarity, the retailer content is not ‘offer’ or ‘discount’ driven. It is about experiences that can only happen in-store – such as the Gin Bar in Hackett or the autumn/winter collection now available in-store at Burberry.

“From our analysis of consumer content consumption, news, exclusivity and experiences drive foot traffic much more than discounts or sales. Our favorite story was a tourist who went into a high-end accessories store with the app showing an image of a new bag from the brand’s latest collection, and said to the sales advisor, ‘Do you have this bag? I need five of them!’”

Regent Street on-the-go
Referred to as London’s “Mile of Style,” Regent Street is home to more than 120 international brands and restaurants. Rivaling New York’s Fifth Avenue and Paris’ Champs-Elysées, its store offerings, many of which are flagships, include luxury brands such as Apple, Burberry, Michael Kors and Liberty London and mass and premium retailers Anthropologie and J.Crew, among others.

With more than 3,000 feet of store fronts, Regent Street offers the finest collections, but exploring the high street to its full potential can be limiting if the consumer is unaware of what is nearby and what in-store offers may be available.

The Regent Street app aims to assist consumers in the planning of shopping excursions. To do so, the app relies on beacon technology to send consumers alerts from boutiques and restaurants as they pass by.

User-generated profile on the Regent Street app 

Participating storefronts have installed beacons that integrate its content into the Regent Street app. Content includes new in-store promotions, upcoming events and exclusive offers available only for Regent Street visitors.

Keeping personalization at the forefront, the app has the ability for consumers to input their preferences anonymously. When considering the use of beacons, many brands worry about consumers’ privacy concerns, but by ensuring profiles are kept secure, shoppers may be more inclined to sign up.

Regent Street’s app uses the profiles to push only promotions or brands that will interest individual consumers, rather than a broad sweeping approach that may aggravate or be seen as useless to the shopper. The guided shopping app then ranks offers by personal interest.

Content seen on the Regent Street app 

Since its launch in 2014, participating storefronts have seen offer redemptions via the mobile app increase tenfold. Likewise, when offers were pinged to nearby shoppers based on geotargerting, an engagement rate of 35 percent was recorded.

According to data from autoGraph.me, the app is most heavily used on Wednesdays and Thursdays, with consumers saving content as reminders for weekend shopping trips. Content most commonly of interest includes events, new collection drops and restaurants.

Regent Street’s shopping app is available for Apple and Android devices.

The success of the Regent Street app may have potential at other international high streets.

“We are very proud of being the first luxury shopping experience in Europe that is fully beacon-enabled,” Mr. Lawson said. “Other ‘destination’ shopping streets could certainly benefit from having an in-app experience personalized to every shopper.

“As 90 percent of all commerce is still bricks-and-mortar, having a curated destination such as Regent Street – with flagship stores and one-of-a-kind experiences enabled through the Regent Street app – will continue to delight shoppers,” he said.

Beacons or bust
Individual brands have also deployed beacon technology to enhance the in-store shopping experience.

For example, department store chain Barneys New York is furthering its omnichannel capabilities through the use of integrated iBeacon technology and a personalization platform.

Powered by RichRelevance’s Relevance Cloud, Barneys is emphasizing its dedication to creating an in-store experience enhanced by digital touchpoints. The initiative has created a first-of-its-kind digital customer experience at Barneys’ recently opened downtown flagship in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood (see story).

While many bricks-and-mortar retailers have seen dwindling sales as of late (see story), a one on one consumer engagement approach may assist in ensuring its in-store offers are effective and worthwhile.

“Regent Street has more than 120 retail outlets plus walking tours, exclusive events, activities for all ages and an array of dining opportunities,” Mr. Lawson said. “At any one time there is a myriad of messages that can often bombard visitors with irrelevant offers.

“The app allows each user to only be exposed to the Regent Street offers they’re interested in by utilizing autoGraph’s user-generated profile solution,” he said. “The user does this by swiping up or down on the brand sorter to build their own profile of interests. We rank all of the Regent Street content in order of what is valuable to that specific user.

“This allows customers to get the best experience from Regent Street, curated especially for them. This was a must-have for the application as we know that mobile users are constantly ‘snacking’ on content and they require what is of most interest to them to be readily available.

“As it only takes 30 seconds to build your profile, based on brands you like that feature on Regent Street, we have seen over 95 percent of app downloads result in a profile being created.”

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