Imagine a world in which the addicting power of social media influence can become an actual physical touchpoint within brick and mortar, infusing the connectedness of social media into the in-store experience. That’s the world Fomo Storefront is working to create.
Fomo Storefront, one of the first major launches out of three-year-old marketing platform, Fomo, connects data on recent in-store purchases, customer reviews and buying trends to a variety of retail technologies, including local screens, point-of-sale (POS) solutions, tablets and more.
Fomo said that the addition of Fomo Storefront to a brick-and-mortar store can help bring in previously passive window shoppers and improve conversion rates thanks to the power of “social proof,” or social influencing.
Customers are able to see the products that are being purchased in a store in real-time and can even tap on notifications (provided the connected device has a touch screen) to see QR codes that can take them to a product landing page from nearly any other device, creating another path to purchase in-store and turning paying customers into a potential influencers.
The first to introduce the technology into its business, Australian furniture retailer, Brosa, said it did so to bridge its “offline retail spaces with what’s happening in our online store.”
“Since day one, Fomo has always strived to be the online equivalent of a busy store. With the introduction of Fomo Storefront, we’ve come one step closer to making that a reality,” Fomo founder, Ryan Kulp, said in a statement.
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Fomo also practically guarantees Fomo Storefront will be compatible with almost every available POS and sales tool, saying “if we don’t already integrate with your POS, we will,” due to the code-free and customizable nature of its software. Fomo Storefront can already natively integrate into 86 POS solutions including Aldelo, Lightspeed Retail and Shopify.
The process to integrate the technology, Fomo says on its website, is fairly simple and only involves connecting the program’s “channel” with a POS or online store. Once connected, all that’s left is to “tune in” to Fomo Storefront on whatever screen or device makes sense for a given business. Access to the program starts at $29 a month.
In a statement, the brand said it was founded on the principle that many marketers don’t understand that the “most powerful marketing is personal recommendation” and instead focus their time on intrusive ads and annoying pop-ups. By adding in the benefits of online connectivity to a retail space that can provide additional personal connections, Kulp believes that Fomo can strengthen the trust between retailers and consumers.
“Consumers are wary of dishonest marketing and look to their peers when making a purchase,” Kulp said. “With Fomo Storefront, customers now have another level of social proof to aid in their purchasing decisions that was not previously available.”