How Are Innovative Technologies Adding New Dimension To The Retail Industry?

How Are Innovative Technologies Adding New Dimension To The Retail Industry? Avakash Dekavadiya 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

Technology Solutions Shaping the Ecommerce Industry

Technology Solutions Shaping the Ecommerce Industry Avakash Dekavadiya If the past year and the first six months of 2021 have given us some wisdom, then it is the ability to adjust to uncertain situations. Businesses evolve quickly, which also gives rise to bottlenecks posed by the outside environment. We need to stay disaster-ready and future-ready to meet the marketing and sales requirements of the business. This adjustment to the new normal has enabled us to adapt to trending technologies. The e-commerce and retail industry requires swift movement to technological advancements to improve traffic and upsurge company sales. If you have a retail or eCommerce store, then you can utilize this perfect timing to implement new technology. Technology Solutions As an e-commerce or retail store, you are experiencing a reduction in traffic. The numbers are constantly decreasing when the pandemic is practically allowing users to adjust to the online purchase culture. Why is it like this for your organization?   Are you not offering a seamless mobile experience?   Is your website not equipped to allow e-wallet payment transactions?   Are you failing to serve user requests?   There’s a new definition of customer experience today, which is driven by seamless communication, easier payment options, quick purchases, and smooth mobile app experiences. If you are failing to offer any of the above, here are some trending technology solutions that can empower your business. Shopify As a retail business owner, you need an e-commerce store that is tailor-made according to your business. Shopify customization and development is a money-efficient option for scaling your business. You can reach a software development company like AIMDek to get the following Shopify services: Migration services Store development Store customization Theme development API development Salesforce There’s an unnerving gap in retail and eCommerce experience. While you can offer more personalized purchases in-house, online shopping has many more options. To set up a journey from retail to eCommerce, you need a Salesforce solution and Customer Relationship Management. With CRM, you can: Unify user experience Create advanced user profiles Log user purchase history Offer recommendations of products Gather data in minutes Get insights into customer experience Microsoft Microsoft solutions have immense capability to support your eCommerce and retail organizations. From creating a unified ERP and CRM experience for retailers to a seamless experience for implementation of IoT analytics driving the supply chain, this implementation is the key to eCommerce success.   You get the following: Commerce for retail and e-commerce support IoT analytics for supply chain management Smart virtual bots for better customer management Trending Technology Changes in E-Commerce and Retail If you match the following criteria, it is the best time to adapt to new technology.   Do you have a retail store? Do you have a minimal online presence? Do you offer home delivery but you don’t have a proper e-commerce store? Do you need unified e-commerce and retail experience?   To cater to the requirements of your business and provide products during high influx, understand and use the following trending technologies: Mobility In 2021, the revenue of mobile experience has increased from USD 2.91 trillion to USD 3.57 trillion. This surprising jump in the utilization of mobile app and other mobility solutions is due to the feasibility of purchasing and using smartphones. While we can also open websites on the phone, the experience of mobility solutions is unmatched. Hence, if you don’t already have a mobile app for your retail or e-commerce store, it is necessary to have one. E-Wallet E-wallet allows users to complete merchant payments without using their card and account details on any website. This encourages the user to trust the transaction. Considering the cyberattacks and frauds encountered in the country, it is logical to utilize a more secure, less hassle online payment solution.   One of the benefits of using e-wallets is quick transactions; most wallet transactions are one click. Customization Customization requirements of users are becoming more and more prominent. The online experience is now all we have, which is why various small and big companies are customizing their user transactions end-to-end. It only seems logical to customize and personalize even e-commerce transactions. For instance, offering a customized feed to a user who has been shopping with you for a long time. Benefits of customizations are: Increased brand loyalty Better awareness Improved customer experience Advanced ROI CRM Experience Every online retailer or e-commerce store connects with users via various channels, such as website, mobile app, marketplace, social media, chatbot, etc. You need to create a unified experience on all these channels. To achieve this, companies have started using the CRM experience which integrates your digital presence and helps you answer user queries centrally without any trouble. A CRM like Salesforce is also known to synchronize and automate your entire sales experience and communication. Progressive Web Apps Before we discuss the importance and growing trend of progressive web apps, let’s understand what are these: Progressive web apps are APIs of web browsers that bring native features with traditional progressive strategies. These are becoming increasingly popular because of their valuable design pattern that includes various application attributes, such as techniques and web technologies. Why you need a progressive web app? Progressive Installable Discoverable Network independent Linkable Safe and secure Responsive Prototyping The last and very important trend in the industry is prototyping. It creates a proof-of-concept that helps you understand the feasibility of implementing any solution in the real world. The idea behind this is to determine how much potential your app or web solution has in the real world. Conclusion The pandemic has helped every user move towards a more digital, online method of achieving tasks. We are now more inclined to shopping from online retail or e-commerce stores. However, from the perspective of e-commerce and retail stores, you need to match up to this demand. It is the need of the hour to offer a seamless, smooth experience, which is possible with the help of the above solutions and services. AIMDek Technologies is an enterprise software development and consulting firm that