Technology has changed everything. It transforms our day-to-day work and always comes with a solution that makes us capable to overcome any challenge. As we all know, Covid-19 severely affected the year 2020 and disrupted almost all business ventures. During this time, the entire retail industry has also struggled for growth. Selling product then was not only a challenge, but they were also facing a change in consumer behavior. That is why now, almost all consumers want to get less service with all the security measures. Also, they want checkout ease with smart billing options. They now rely more on online ordering platforms to avoid any form of contact.
Now, the challenges for retail business owners, especially brick-and-mortar businesses, have not diminished even after the Covid-19 effect has declined. They now have the ability to efficiently transform their businesses with technology innovations.
Covid-19 is just one incident that has suddenly changed the way a consumer purchase and business owner manages the business. It shows why we all need technology change in the retail industry. In this blog, you will see how technology transforms the retail industry and how to apply technology to better meet the needs of customers.
Drivers of Digital Transformation in the Retail Industry
- Increased business expectations to stay in the market and to be competitive with present other competitors.
- Attracting digital platforms to enhance in-store experiences and enhancing customers’ physical experiences.
- Achieving a real-time delivery and speed in business, and a transparent view to meet challenges at the supply chain level.
- Installing sufficient methods in business to reduce costs at the level of digitization and supply chain, among others.
- Impact and opportunities in areas such as data-driven optimization and marketing, staff empowerment, and new technologies.
- To provide a relaxing and flexible shopping experience through digital technologies.
- Dealing with the severe impacts generated by the COVID-19 epidemic on the retail industry.
- Maintaining a consistent business sale, leveraging data to optimize business, making shopkeepers/consumers feel safe, protecting workers, saving costs, etc.
Tech Trends that Transform the Retail Industry and the Retail Shopping Journey
Role of predictive analysis or big data
It is not a big issue for retail organizations to ever collect a lot of stock. But the real challenge for them is to analyze their stocks. Over time, using stock data to solve problems or create new solutions becomes a struggle for owners. Predictive analytics brings changes. This makes retailers active in business management. It provides facilities to analyze consumer behavior and market trends.
After successfully analyzing the data by retailers, they can understand the important area of their business where they require extra effort to get more profit. Also, they gain better insight into consumer buying behavior and can give them a personalized shopping experience. In this way, predictive analytics gives retail businesses a better capability, reducing the cost of supply chains, and more. Predictive analytics helps retailers be smarter, more efficient, and reduce costs.
Role of advanced Order Fulfilment Automation Techniques
According to the report, by the end of 2025, more than 580,000 autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) will be deployed to help warehouses fulfill customer orders.
Order fulfillment is the main concern for any retail industry. To that end, businesses typically integrate with retail software solutions. These solutions establish proper order management for the retail business. Order management gives users a way to manage orders and automates the processes involved in order processing. It transforms the order fulfillment processes and tries to increase ordering speed to compete with other competitors. This automation can easily reduce order processing time. Also, struggle to find additional human laborers to handle warehouse works and automates maximum processes.
Role of Face Recognition in transforming the retail industry
Face recognition is not a new technology, but its use is still limited in the retail industry. After Covid-19, it becomes another transformation technique. This technique can prove an effective technique in quickly informing any retailer of the need of customers.
Many successful retailers who have an online and offline presence use facial recognition technology. When a customer is identified through facial recognition technology, store employees can better respond to that customer’s unique needs. It helps retailers to shop continuously and protect the business from any kind of theft. It gives brick-and-mortar retail outlets a personalized shopping experience and forces them to approach contact-less orders, billing, and more.
A faster way to attract customers through chatbots
ChatBots can turn consumers into repeat customers. It gives businesses a digital transformation where it facilitates systems that answer the user;’s query more engagingly. Also, it sets up a fully personalized shopping experience.
In the retail business, it offers a perfect customized product recommendation. You can design it to know the consumer’s needs or preferences. This way, customers make the selection of specific products and make a purchase. This way, it saves time and money, sets you on top of competitors, helps you to customize your business, and facilitates rapid response and consistency. It enhances the customer reach, helps customers solve problems without human intervention.
Internet of Things (IoT) revolutionize the retail industry
Internet of Things — Expands Internet connectivity to physical devices and everyday objects. This technology has the potential to transform the shopping experience. Retailers are using IoT technology to enhance customer experience, drive growth and improve overall performance. It establishes a relationship with the customer, gets the customer journey completed in time, improves product maintenance processes, and builds a long-lasting bond with shoppers. It uses data smartly and provides its users with-
- Provides the functionality of personal communication with end-users
- Helps retailers in product customization
- Monitors in-store and wait times
- Installs fidelity program
- Gives customer updates on product delivery status
- Increases store management efficiency
- Reduces the amount of workforce required to run a store
Enhancement in augmented shopping
Augmented Reality (AR) transforms the traditional way of buying any product. It especially affected the retail garment industry by eliminating the “try-before-you-buy” approach. After Covid-19, it plays a major role in facilitating virtual fitting room systems for retailers. Being guided by the “try-before-you-buy” approach, augmented shopping attracts customers by allowing them to interact with products online. This way, it enhances the use of the mobile platform or B2C apps. Also, shoppers will be able to place virtual items on the physical surfaces and provide realistic interactions between real and virtual goods.
Role of advanced Stock Management
Automating warehouses helps the retail industry to improve stock management. Instead of waiting for manual handling, retailers now use smart robotics, computer systems, and retail software. This technology change gives a reliable technique to stock data in real-time. In this way, retailers are more likely to obtain accurate data on shares. It helps retailers manage stock flow, make solid predictions, make smart decisions, and make predictions that help improve the store’s bottom line.
Bottom Line
The economic and social impact of the global epidemic has forced shopping habits to change. In the same way, retailers also have the challenge of transforming the business through the latest technology to deal with the market trend. The right technology transformation improves in-store operations, reduces the load of store employees, and corrects data to plan business strategies for customers.
