In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero, Marcus Wareham of Chelsea Apps Factory discuss how to get players on mobile devices into the retail stores.
Marriage—between retail and online gambling sectors—is easier said than done. We already have a lot of young people on mobile devices now, but is there a way to get these guys into the retail stores?
Marcus Wareham, of Chelsea Apps Factory believes the key is to spice things up on the retail side.
“I think something could be done with making the environment—store—a bit more youthful and friendly definitely,” Wareham told CalvinAyre.com.
Traditional operators must also think of the players’ “main motivation,” which in this case, is always cash.
“Thinking around those sort of things: If I can place a bet online but actually walk into a retailer’s store and say, can I have my money please and walk out with [cash] in my hand and then go and buy some beer, then that’s, you know, a good place to be,” Wareham said.
On the other hand, bringing players online takes also a bit of strategy. Ladbrokes, for instance, recently launched a bet slip scanner as part of its “digital multichannel strategy.”
“You got your traditional slip in stores, so you’ve placed that using a pen and paper, paid over in cash you then take your betting slip and you can scan it on your mobile phone and as you leave the store essentially, you got a digital copy of your bet slip and it’s keeping track of how your bet is doing,” Wareham, who works with Ladbrokes, explained. “You’ve given the retail player a reason to go digital essentially. You give them a reason to get your app, download it to their phone, adding value above and beyond the standard retailer’s bonus.”
Data plays a crucial role in the merging of retail and online gambling industry, but Wareham stressed that there’s no magic formula yet that will address this issue.
“Retail data tends to be anonymous as it stands in the moment. As we talked about before, the best gatherers of data in the retail environment currently are the people who work in the shop. They know their customers. Capturing that digitally is a huge challenge and then the added part of that is linking it up with digital behavior,” Wareham said. “At the moment, we talk about Ladbrokes, the data is in various sports all over the place linking it together is a challenge, so we’re constantly looking to address and work out.”
