Dyl Kurpil, managing director of District Enforcement, discusses how to improve the customer journey in the run up to Christmas
There is a lot of speculation about how successful retail trading will be over the Christmas/festive season. Questions have arisen about whether ecommerce will dominate or if in-store shopping in town centres, shopping centres, destination shopping parks and grocery stores will take the lion’s share of trade and consumer spend. Additionally, inflation is at an all-time high and the cost-of-living crisis is causing concern for UK shoppers and families.
This makes it important for retailers to consider how best to serve customers in order to increase their revenue reasonably. As they do this, many have considered how best to improve their customer journey. Online, this is relatively easy to figure out thanks to the copious amounts of marketing technology available to ecommerce retailers. But, it’s arguably not that straightforward for in-store/bricks and mortar shopping scenarios: where exactly does that shopping journey begin and end? For many, it starts with realising that at some stage they are likely going to have to enter a physical store to shop for some goods.
This could include high street clothing shopping; nipping to a grocery store to pick up the family shopping; or grabbing lunch and a movie with friends at a destination shopping location. Quite literally, just getting to these places involves some form of customer journey. How pleasant is this – and, importantly, for motorists, what’s the parking experience like?
High-street and bricks and mortar shopping is back
Over the last two-to-three years retail trading experienced unusual and understandable shopping trends. Through the pandemic and various lockdowns, we all experienced an array of measures that saw physical store closures for non-essential shopping.
Naturally, this meant in-store shopping, physical footfall and traffic to bricks and mortar stores decreased, and that ecommerce thrived. But, as society opened up again, shoppers/ motorists went back to in-store shopping, even if many of the statisticians have explained that the figures are lower than pre-pandemic levels. The Centre for Retail Research explains that, “in 2021 with zero Christmas Lockdowns, sales through bricks-and-mortar stores rose by +14.2%, although they were still £3bn below those of 2019, at £44.382bn. Since 2019, bricks-and-mortar stores have lost a total retail market share of 6.9% to online retailers.”
Furthermore, despite the fact that ecommerce took off in these recent pandemic years, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) points out that, “the proportion of retail sales taking place online was 26.1% in October 2022,” and that this has, “remained at a broadly consistent level since May 2022”. Clearly, while ecommerce has made an impact, the reality is around 70% of shoppers do shop across an array of bricks and mortar locations still. Data from retail analytics provider, Springboard, echoes this sentiment – its town centre sales tracker says that spending in bricks and mortar stores increased in October.
The role of parking in the customer journey
The festive season -– already well underway and pushing through into January – can be a nightmare for motorists trying to access their favourite physical shopping destinations though.
As many drive to their favourite high streets, shops, restaurants and retail/entertainment destinations, parking becomes a key concern – something which is usually considered anyway, but which is heightened with anxiety even more so over this period. There is the stress of finding somewhere to park: is it safe, how long can I park there, what is the fee and so on – all of which adds stress to that final customer shopping journey. This makes it key for landowners, town councils and retailers to collaborate to improve festive parking strategies.
There are several factors that need to be considered by car park operators over this period. For instance – what is the purpose of a particular car park? It should make life convenient for shoppers; leave shoppers feeling confident that their vehicles are safe; and there should be sufficient lighting within the facilities. Importantly, signage outlining parking terms and conditions should be visible, clear and easy to understand for vehicles accessing parking.
Car park abuse spoils the customer journey
The rates for the parking should be reasonable and fair for all accessing the car park, and penalty fees for car park abuse should be clearly outlined too.
While there is a high proportion of compliant motorists accessing car parks over the festive period (anecdotally around 80-90%), it is a small minority of abusers that cause problems for others, and who should be penalised. It’s also often these same chancers, who scream the loudest and get heard in car parking disputes, even when wrong. But, the reality is that in most cases these offenders often abuse car parking terms and onditions. They overstay, don’t pay for parking and this can ruin the experience for others: meaning they cannot access parking that they need, and this can cause frustration that is unpleasant for others. More to the point – why should those people taking advantage of the system be allowed to get away with parking incorrectly?
While parking is considered a decriminalised offence in local council scenarios (similar to that of a breach in consumer rights), failure to comply with parking terms and conditions is considered a statutory wrong, and could lead to a suitable parking charge notice. In the case of private land, terms and conditions are based on contract law: motorists enter into an agreement to comply with usage, and so agree to being penalised for a failure to comply with outlined terms and conditions. This then raises a further question about the most appropriate way to enforce the protection of parking for visitors and, inadvertently, the customer journey for operators at councils, retailers, and destination shopping locations.
Education changes behaviour
Fair and proven enforcement strategies can help with educating motorists so that the correct behaviour change is encouraged across parking sites.
Typically, campaigns consist of retailers and councils informing shoppers about parking, especially in the run up to the festive season. Parking options and rates should be well-advertised on websites, social media and signs. Sure, it’s important to advertise products to customers – but, ideally, marketing should also include how best to access a store/location by showing coveted shoppers where’s best to park, offering free car parking with time limitations clearly outlined to shoppers, and good behaviour incentivised.
Additionally, it is important to ensure that parking is fair for those who do abide by parking terms and conditions, and that the small proportion of car park abusers is penalised appropriately. Retailers and councils should work with enforcement firms to understand the scale of the general problem surrounding parking abuse and consider proportionally firmer, fairer education campaigns that are based on issuing parking charge notices for breaching terms and conditions. When exploring this option it’s important to work with organisations that are accredited with appropriate industry associations – like the International Parking Community (IPC) – and that any education campaigns are fairly outlined, with officers not being incentivised for enforcement their efforts.
Conclusion
The festive shopping period can be an emotive and stressful time for many. Consumers often take parking for granted, and it’s only when fair access to parking is abused that it becomes upsetting for shoppers. In light f the current UK economic environment, society is broadly likely to have a lower tolerance for unfairness over the Christmas/Festive period too. Therefore, local councils, land owners, retailers and destination shopping outlets must come together to agree their festive parking strategies in order ensure that the bad behaviour of a small few doesn’t ruin the customer journey and shopping experience for the many.
• District Enforcement is a specialist enforcement company offering environmental crime enforcement, parking management, moorings management and event control to local authorities and private organisations.
