Deployment of in-store Wi-Fi has the most positive impact on the retail sales and retail loyalty, according to a study by IHL.
Almost 50 percent of the retailers claimed that increased customer loyalty is due to in-store employee Wi-Fi whereas 28 percent said increased customer loyalty is due to in-store customer Wi-Fi.
The result shows that employee Wi-Fi has more effect on sales than customer Wi-Fi as deploying in-store employee Wi-Fi shows 3.4 percent increase in sales and 2 percent increase in sales is due to deploying in-store customer Wi-Fi.
With 21 percent, retailers said an increase in customer dwell time in their stores is due to deployment of in-store Wi-Fi. Top uses included traffic counting at 56 percent and session duration and device used at 49 percent.
The IHL study, Impact of Store Networks and Wi-Fi on the Customer Experience, highlighted that 40 percent of IT budgets are now allocated to deploying new and innovative systems, earlier the budget was only 15 to 30 percent.
Study also mentioned that nearly 70 percent of retailers are designing their next Point of Sale system based on a central order management system
According to the study, 34 percent of the retailers plan to update their WAN network security within 12 months and with same percent retailers are also planning to update their WAN bandwidth optimization.
“The IHL report shows that savvy retailers are already seeing revenue increases from deploying in-store Wi-Fi, be it for employees or customers. Increasing same store sales is a team goal,” said Kevin McCauley, director of retail market development, AirTight Networks.
EarthLink Holdings partnered with IHL Group and AirTight Networks to conduct study to measure the impact of the retail industry’s plans for store networking, Wi-Fi, security and engagement.
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