During our virtual customer event a few months ago, many attendees expressed appreciation for being given the opportunity to share challenges and best practices with others in the industry. This year, we found customers far more likely to open up than in past years. 2020 has undoubtedly changed the way retailers think about competition. “We’re all in this together” has never been more true as retailers of every shape and size struggle with furloughs, store closures and health and safety compliance. 

This sentiment isn’t unique to retail. Earlier this week, Burger King UK showed that different times call for different marketing. In a surprising post, the fast-food giant encouraged its followers to order a Big Mac from McDonald’s. Here’s the post:

“Getting a Whopper is always best, but ordering a Big Mac is also not such a bad thing.” 

During a time when so many people are suffering, we love that Burger King is encouraging its followers to support the restaurant industry in any form.  

This resonated with us because we shared a similar viewpoint last month when we published the results of our 2020 Health and Safety Compliance in Retail study. In our analysis of NAPCO secret shopper data collected at 100 omni-channel retailers, we found that retailers that use software to manage communications and task management outperform those that don’t. 

We said, “We looked at how our customers performed against non-Zipline customers and our competitors’ customers. We found that tools users outperform non-tools users and Zipline customers outperform both.” 

In short: Zipline is always best, but implementing any communications software is also not such a bad thing.

As we enter what might be a tumultuous week and holiday season for retail, we hope that the industry comes together to solve some of the challenges that plague the industry today. If we can share what we have learned from our experience or from working with some of the best retailers in the industry, please don’t hesitate to reach out.