DISCUSSION
Will customers get the ‘social proof’ they need from Fomo Storefront?
Written by RetailWire Staff
Photo: Fomo
Being able to see what other customers (sometimes even customers "like us") have recently purchased has become a familiar part of the e-commerce shopping experience. Now one vendor is using in-store touchscreens to bring this functionality to brick-and-mortar retail.
Fomo Storefront is an interactive display that allows physical stores to provide what the company calls "social proof" to in-store shoppers to help drive purchases. Locations equipped with Fomo Storefront feature screens — tablets, smart TVs or computer monitors — which display a running list of what other shoppers are buying from the brand at that particular moment. The solution can be integrated with either an online store, so that data about what is being purchased on the web can be streamed to the screens, or with a point-of-sale solution so that people see what people physically shopping around them are buying.
Whether displaying this type of recommendation leads to conversions in brick-and-mortar stores adds a new, physical twist to longstanding questions about how online customers respond to recommendations and what separates an effective one from one that gets ignored.
Delivering relevant recommendations that actually result in a conversion, rather than annoying an online shopper, has been difficult for retailers. Despite the frequency with which we see recommended products online, a study by SAP last year found that three-fourths of shoppers polled globally failed to see recommendations for products that actually interested them.
While there may be a way to go on personalized recommendations, the fear of missing out (from which Fomo’s solution gets its name) does appear to push sales, at least under some circumstances. For instance, limited-time deals were part of the appeal of the once popular daily deals site, Woot.com, which was acquired by Amazon.com in 2010.
It is also not uncommon to see "hot sellers" or items anticipated to sell out soon listed in online flash sales, meant to inspire customers to purchase what their fellow shoppers have before the sale ends.