With evolving customers’ digital expectations, brick-and-mortar retailers are finding it difficult to compete with them. The increased adoption of online sales making things tougher for offline retailers. That’s where technology solutions stand out as the remedy to increase customer interactions, deliver a personalized experience, and enhance the store with a holistic view of customers’ data.
Leading retailers like- Walmart and Target have adopted advanced technologies and gained early bird advantage with digital Kiosk implementation to provide inventory and product information in real-time. Bonbos has also performed well with a try-before-you-buy feature that’s enabled with a perfect blend of Ecommerce and in-store experience.
It has helped stores to improve in-store engagement, uplift conversion, and improve loyalty, which ultimately drives high ROI. As a retailer, if you want to evolve your store according to consumer preferences, adopting retail technology solutions helps you go beyond.
5 retail technology solutions that you can consider
AI technology leverage
Data science is dominating the retail industry for a couple of decades, but now enhancing it with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning enables stores to take great strides.
For instance, when it comes to managing in-store product placements, retailers need to think a lot about how many times the product is displayed and the location where it needs to place relative to other items. Here, AI technology simplifies product placement-related decision-making accurately.
Sparse shelves are the result of poor stock replenishment, last-mile logistics errors, or human error, which leads to business losses. That’s where AI technology integration with the retail core system optimizes the on-shelf product availability controlling activity.
In-store data analytics
Presently, customer expectations are evolving that require retailers to stay in sync with evolutions. In-store data analytics help retailers track user traffic, inventory, and conversions, and analyze user interaction with distinct brands, the items tried, and the items not purchased after the trial.
The advanced level of tracking and analysis helps in delivering services at a personal level. It also helps in synchronizing the online and offline inventory so that items remain available in stock and accessible to the users when they require them.
In-door navigation
Heatmaps help in understanding the areas and the product with which the users interact the most and the least at the retail store. The data intelligence enables retailers to optimize the product’s locations accordingly. Bluetooth beacons are leveraged by brick-and-mortar stores at scale for sending the personalized messages such as sales, offers, new arrivals, and more to the user’s phone as they come in the proximity of the beacon.
Behavioral analytics technology is also leveraged to enhance the customer journey. The technology track user movements and their activities related to product trial and purchase that delights customers.
Cybersecurity solutions
The technology adoption is followed by cyberattacks, so the retailers must secure data, networks, and operations to shield the digital system from fraudsters. That’s why the retail industry in 2023 is adopting facial recognition, voice capture, data encryption, firewall, IT security framework, and others to ensure higher standards of security.
However, the data captured and stored in several places such as CRM, PoS, cloud, mobile apps, spreadsheets, and others with no central control makes things difficult for retailers. Retailers are trying their best to meet security benchmarks to strengthen customers’ trust in the store.
Voice commerce
Voice commerce aka smart assistants turned out a blessing for retailers that are increasing sales with personalized recommendations and faster checkout. In the same vein, they are helping users to repeat past order, enable quick product searches, notify about the latest offers or promotions, and more.
The cutting-edge technology solutions enable retail stores to answer the competition they are facing from online stores. Also, immersive experiences are expected to turn brick-and-mortar stores into ‘Instagrammable’ spaces that users like to visit the most.
Take a look at how the technologies are transforming retail store services by leaps and bounds. Here’s how retailers keep up with technology trends. Let’s dive in!
5 Real-life technology innovations in retail space
Checkout-free store
The technology advancements have already busted long queues at the checkout counter and reduced human staff taking care of checkout operations. The saving on operational expenses increases by multi-folds with checkout-free stores.
Amazon AI-enabled Amazon Go and Just Walk Out features in Amazon stores where technology tracks every activity of the users from the moment they pick up any item from the shelf or put it back. When the customer is about to leave the store with some items, the technology displays the total amount to pay and it gets deducted from the Amazon account automatically.
Reducing stockroom needs
With the growing showrooming trend where people increasingly like to try the products at physical locations before buying them online, online retailers are establishing physical storefronts. It eliminates the need for a stockroom area which means the cost of rental building gets mitigated by a large margin.
With storefronts in limited locations, retailers can focus more on conversion aspects that reduce the branch network size as well.
Interactive experience delivery
Retailment is one of the retail technology trends that facilitates immersive shopping experiences for customers. The leading brands have nailed the retail digital transformation to enhance user engagement at scale. The smart mirror trend is one of the initiatives taken by the retailer in the same vein.
The interactive mirror is an alternative to the sales assistant that helps them know about inventory items availability, say size or color availability. The easy-to-use interface is easily accessible and makes smart recommendations with RFID tag scanning attached to items that users try in fitting rooms.
Virtual try-on
Augmented reality technology is well-famous in the retail landscape for delivering a transmogrifying experience to users. It has turned shop windows into virtual stores where users can try the products virtually before buying them to make them ascertain for product shopping.
Incorporating AR technology within products helps users get additional information about products and provide business with more opportunities to increase sales along with delivering the best experience.
Supply chain intelligence
The growing need for users’ instant gratification has made it compulsory for retailers to enable one-hour or same-day delivery shipping options for users. That’s where improved communication between partners and suppliers meets the need for reducing delivery time and cost.
360-degree view of the complete supply chain from raw material sourcing to last-mile delivery allows retailers better manage inventory and fulfill customers’ expectations.
Looking For technology experts for your retail business?
How AIMDek can help optimize your retail store with technology solutions?
Online and offline stores are two separate retail entities that cannot operate without technology solutions. In fact, choosing the right technology solution according to retail business needs is not an easy endeavor. That’s where the AIMDek team helps retailers to stand out in the market with the right technology solution integration.
Technology consultants and business analysts sit with business stakeholders to identify their business needs with the in-depth market, competition, and customer research. Get connected with us to know Digital solutions for Retail industry and figure out the best fit that meets your needs.
