Omnichannel Retail Strategy Best Practices from Libro and Pagro Diskont CEO Ulrike Kittinger

Libro is a brand that many Austrians have been growing up with. The specialty retailer selling school and office supplies, books, and entertainment products has over 190 physical stores and is one of the strongest, most well-known brands in the country. According to Austria’s Retail Association, Libro is the market leader in the office supplies segment and ranks 24th place in the list of Austrian retailers.

What’s most impressive about Libro is that it has been operating based on a stable and powerful brand for over 20 years with a well-proven concept that local consumers are familiar with. The same applies to its sister company Pagro Diskont, another specialty retailer offering office and creative supplies.?

Testimony to its brand strength and successful anchoring in the minds of Austrian consumers is the fact that Libro’s most successful advertising tool is still the traditional flyer that is sent regularly to 2.5 million Austrian households.

With this in mind, it might come as a surprise to some that the Libro and Pagro Diskont brands are also successful omnichannel retailers that have not only implemented a number of innovative features in their online stores but are also proactively using social media for a number of clearly defined purposes. According to the Retail Association’s “Omnichannel Readiness Index 2022”, Libro is the leading innovative omnichannel retailer in the sector of books and office supplies.

Both Libro and Pagro Diskont have their own online stores and proactively use platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Tiktok, and Facebook for new customer acquisition, traffic channeling, personalized ads, and community building. According to reports published by the Austrian Retail Association, some customers research online and then purchase offline, whereas some browse the products in the physical store before buying the chosen items online. While Libro and Pagro Diskont still make most of their revenue in their physical stores, the online stores and the activities on social media channels fulfill an important, complementary purpose.

We spoke to Ulrike Kittinger, CEO Libro and Pagro Diskont at MTH Group, to learn more about the omnichannel strategy that the brands are using.

Ms. Kittinger, please tell us about your omnichannel strategy for both brands. What channels are you using for which purpose?

The backbone of our operations is still our brick-and-mortar stores, where most of the sales transactions take place. Both brands, Libro and Pagro Diskont, have well-developed online stores that serve an important objective. Some customer groups visit our online store with the main objective of browsing products before purchasing offline, others have a clear preference to buy online. Both channels complement each other. Online we offer features like “click and collect” and “click and reserve”.

Customer experience is something we value, and there are a number of services that are only offered in either our physical stores or in our online shops. For example, teenagers who do not own a credit card can reserve and purchase tickets for basically all events and concerts in our brick-and-mortar stores. Customers can order a book and pick it up in one of our stores.

We also work with social media, including Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and TikTok.

We use Facebook and Instagram to attract new customers, and we have started to work with Instashopping. We also use these platforms for community building. Our content can include creative inspirations, editorials, or ideas on how to use our products. In order to engage and interact with our customers, we design voting challenges or lucky draws.?In addition, we collaborate with influencers to strengthen our positioning and increase our reach and work with personalized ads.?

For our brand Pagro Diskont, which has a strong positioning in creative and handicraft work, we built and engage with a creative community on Pinterest. Here, most content is creative ideas and inspirations.

To further support our creative community at Pagro Diskont, we also publish a quarterly print and online magazine called “Ideenwerk” (“idea factory”).

Finally, TikTok is a platform any brand needs to work with when they want to engage with younger consumer groups. What’s amazing about TikTok is that you can reach a very big audience for a comparatively small budget. One fun thing that we do on TikTok are “trend challenges”.

We also work with automated, personalized ads. After a customer has browsed a theme, he or she will later receive ads from us offering related products.

At 5 Star Plus Retail Design, we believe that authentic brands are powerful brands that sell more. Throughout your stores and all of your online channels, there are core values and messages that are consistently implemented. What are they?

Yes, our beliefs and messages are implemented in everything we do; you can feel them whenever you are in one of our stores or get in touch with us:

We have our finger on the pulse. We represent openness and enthusiasm for new ideas. Efficiency. And fun using our products. And finally, we are reliable – you can find everything you need at Libro, particularly in the sectors of school and office, paper and writing utensils.

How are you able to compete with global low-cost e-commerce players like Amazon?

One of our competitive advantages is the “local factor”. Many of our products are produced in Austria. For example, our exercise books are all 100% produced in Austria. Thanks to extensive and continuous customer research, we understand that this aspect is something our customers care about. We have our own line of products, Novooo, which is mainly produced in Europe.

We are also part of the J? Bonus Club, which is a multi-partner system with which customers can collect bonus points. After you buy with us at Libro, for example, you may use your collected points and choose to buy with a 20% discount at partner grocery retailer Billa. This loyalty program is very effective and an advantage that our customers do appreciate.

What are your most effective means of advertising at Libro and Pagro Diskont?

Most effective are still traditional flyers which we send to 2.5 million Austrian households. Thanks to our data analytics, we know that they have the strongest pull effect and best result in terms of sales conversions.

The second most powerful tool is the earlier mentioned J? loyalty program. We use print mailing and emailing through the platform for an extended reach.??????????????????????????????????????

Third, radio ads are very effective in strengthening our positioning and communicating seasonal product offerings and promotions: school start, Easter, carnival, and similar.

You work a lot with customer analytics in your company. Can you tell us what exactly it is you are doing?

We work with customer count and customer flow analysis. Online ads measure customer satisfaction. We do regular market research. Two of our most important KPIs of the online store are the NPS (Net Promoter Score) and the Trusted Shop score. Both provide essential customer feedback that we use for analysis and as the basis for changes and improvements. We have also standard KPIs like customer frequency and sales transactions that we measure in our physical stores and online shops and check and report on every day.

Other customer data is checked once or twice a month and compared with previous months or the previous year. What we want to analyze and understand is: how did certain marketing measures and promotions work?

We evaluate our RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value) scores to review customer value and segmentation. And we compare the achieved results with our targets.

It’s inspiring to see that two of Austria’s most well-known brands are led by a woman. Tell us about topics like Gender Balance, Diversity & Inclusion, and Corporate Social Responsibility at Libro and Pagro Diskont.

I’ll start with our social activities: We support SOS Kinderdorf, an Austrian charity sheltering orphaned kids. For each returned used printer ink cartridge 1 Euro goes to this charity. We also donate learning materials, books and games.

When a customer buys a “red nose”, a symbol to support the Rote Nasen Clowndoctors organization, we match the amount to double the donation.

Another charity we support, besides a number of smaller charitable organizations, is Caritas with their “Lerncafe” (“learning cafe”) program. We provide a significant number of learning materials and donate a part of the sales return of selected novooo products to Caritas.

In terms of diversity, we are a team of three CEOs and two of us are women. More than 60% of our middle management are female. Having said that, there is room for more mixed leadership balance in the advisory board.

Personally, I believe in the empowerment and support of all of my employees. We also offer shared leadership positions.

What have you planned for the future?

We will launch our new brand positioning and branding for Libro this June. The future will be more digital – more virtual reality, but also more digital school.

I believe that sustainability will be a huge topic. This is important for many customers, and we will work increasingly in the direction of eco-certification and recycling of our products.

Thank you for the interview!

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Barbara Seidelmann is the founder and Managing Director of?5 Star Plus Retail Design, an international commercial interior design company that develops concepts for stores, restaurants, offices, exhibition stands, and events. For more information, please contact us at [email protected].