PROMOTIONAL RESEARCH
Molton Brown global customer experience director Julie Folie was joined by Secret Spa CEO Rider Latham and Barclays Partner Finance head of business propositions Costa Stathis for Money Talks: how to drive frictionless shopping experiences.
The episode, featured in full above, is the second in a three-part series Retail Week is running in partnership with Barclays Partner Finance on the evolving world of payments.
The consensus was that consumer mindsets are changing when it comes to how they want to pay for goods, with the headline price becoming less important and growing demand for flexibility. Subscriptions and finance options could be the way forward, they said.
“How can we save our customers as much time as possible – the booking journey could be so much more seamless,” said Latham.
He added that Secret Spa’s thinking was to “change the mindset from ‘can I do this?’ To ‘this is a utility for me’.” However, he noted that easy cancellation was the key to keeping customers happy. “We’ve run some early tests and it has done amazing things for retention,” he said.
Barclays Stathis agreed. “Subscriptions and the whole experience around it is really interesting. When we buy something big, why do we think of the total price rather than how much it costs me a month?” Finance, he said, offers customers similar benefits and while it has traditionally been used for big-ticket purchases, it is now increasingly being used in categories such as electricals.
These options, the panel agreed, will help reduce friction and drive spend across consumer shopping journeys, be that online or in-store.
Want to find out more?
Money Talks brings together leading retailers and brands to give you the inside track of how consumers are feeling, how they are shopping and how to win their spend.
Watch episode 1, Money Talks: Understanding consumer spending in a challenging climate, featuring Notonthehighstreet.com customer and growth director Emile Mouqot, The Very Group chief marketing officer Carly O’Brien and Barclays Partner Finance head of strategy and insight Owain Jones.
Episode 3, Money Talks: How to drive frictionless shopping experiences, will debut online on December 10 with an expert panel including Studio Retail Group financial services director David Twigg, Pure Electric director of public affairs Tom McPhail and Barclays Partner Finance’s Richard Brassey.
