Retail Solutions
Retail Technology

Retail Solutions Driving the Rebirth of Brick and Mortar Stores

The “death of retail” myth has fooled a lot of doomsayers. What’s actually happening is retail is transforming and it’s no longer in-store vs. online. Here are the facts you need to know about this steady growth and what type of retail solutions are fueling this shift.


Evidence Retail Keeps Growing

With more than a million retail stores in America, the retail industry has grown about 4 percent each year since 2010. The misconception that brick and mortar stores are getting overrun by the internet simply isn’t true. Most of the top 50 online retailers, for example, also operate physical stores. Furthermore, only 10 percent of all retail sales take place online while 2,000 new stores emerged in 2018.

Even the number of retail jobs has grown this decade despite economic uncertainties for the middle class. As far as sales, the National Retail Federation has forecasted retail sales will grow 3.8 to 4.4 percent for 2019, rising to $3.8 trillion.


Digital Transformation Trends

Retail’s digital transformation is improving customer service through the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. Some of the key retail solutions that are reshaping the shopping experience are:

  • Cognitive Computing
  • Smart Beacons
  • Cashless/Cardless Checkouts

Cognitive computing, which utilizes AI-chatbots that provide customer service, is growing quickly in 2019. It’s expected to be a game-changer for companies brave enough to embrace robots designed to answer consumer questions.

Beacon technology, which facilitates in-store marketing based on a consumer’s location, is becoming more popular in retail. Beacons are small transmitters that send signals over a short distance to target prospects within a proximity of a matter of feet. Retailers can use beacons to communicate directly with store visitors and let them know about your deals.

Cashless/cardless checkouts are a futuristic way to pay for something without a physical wallet or card. Payment is made from your smartphone using a digital wallet. Due to the environmental concerns of plastic causing too much waste in landfills and oceans, this solution is gaining favor with people who care about becoming greener. The process will likely become even more seamless the more it integrates with IoT technology.


Where Retail Is Heading

Digital technology is the driving force behind the current retail transformation that’s providing greater convenience for consumers. It will certainly lead to more personalization, which increases brand loyalty. But this sea change still needs help from retailers themselves to be fully realized. The labor market for retail is getting more competitive, so store owners will need to invest more in staff pay and training.

Retailers also will need to stay on top of big data, machine learning and virtual assistants to gain a competitive edge. Smaller versions of department stores will become more common while big box stores may have to transform into something else to be profitable. Ultimately, retailers must take a more creative approach to enhance the customer experience.


Conclusion

The future of retail solutions is rapidly moving in a digital direction. Planning for it with modern technology that connects with smartphone users will be a big factor in retail survival.

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Retail IOT
Retail Technology

Reasons Why Your Clients Should Consider Retail IoT

Despite all the talk about the Internet of Things becoming the future of tech, retail IoT is still a distant concept for many businesses. Part of the hesitation has something to do with managers not knowing what to do with volumes of new data that no one had to worry about over 20 years ago. While IoT has obvious utility for companies that sell data, there hasn’t been a lot of talk yet how it can benefit the retail industry.

Here are some important IoT use cases for retailers to consider:


Key IoT Developments

  • Big data analytics
  • Personalized tracking
  • Cloud computing
  • Data processing at the edge of a network
  • Artificial intelligence and automation
  • Beacons that connect shoppers with products

These developments since the early 2000s have reshaped the structure of business technology. Prior to these advancements, firms had to construct their own data solutions by combining software applications. Pioneers who helped pave the way for IoT include Intel, IBM, and Microsoft. Despite these accomplishments, many retailers worry about ROI. In other cases, IT teams haven’t learned how to incorporate IoT into their infrastructure yet.


Enhancing the Customer Experience

Over a decade ago, retail IoT was a new concept for supply chains to ponder. RFID chips were beginning to be embedded in every product imaginable, allowing products to be tracked from factories to warehouses to distributors to store displays. IoT was an excellent tool for measuring inventory counts and having access to accurate delivery timetables. Through its evolution, IoT has come to develop broader value, particularly with customer service.

So instead of IoT serving just internal business functions, it can answer questions for consumers and take on a more omnichannel role. By making inventory public information, like the way Amazon gives product counts, businesses have empowered customers to make decisions based on product availability when ordering online or even at brick-and-mortar establishments. For in-store shoppers, the rise of beacons has opened the door to alerting consumers through their smartphones about products within the store they may be seeking.

Retailers, however, need to rethink how beacons work. At first, they tried creating promotions out of beacons by bombarding consumers with coupons through email. However, consumers responded by blocking these announcements. Store managers need to view beacons as tools that connect the consumer’s digital life with the in-store locations of products without spamming people. They need to use more personalization so that the right messages get to the right people.


Connecting with Employees

Store employees are valuable assets to both retailers and customers because they provide the product knowledge that can help lead to purchasing decisions. That’s why retailers can enhance the customer experience even more by including a button in their app that requests assistance from an employee. It can lead to quick service and quicker conversions. This interaction can then be used for tracking how well the employee helped the consumer.


Convenience of Personalization

Personalization has entered modern marketing language mainly because it satisfies the need for consumers to avoid generic products that don’t meet their expectations. Thanks to the Internet, people no longer have to settle for one-size-fits-all products that don’t really fit. Consumers can either order the products they really want online or let brick-and-mortar stores know first-hand about their wish list.

The use of QR codes or NFC can empower consumers to activate opt-in offers on their mobile devices, regardless of location. Sensors can now detect what people want without them leaving their homes. With voice-activated assistants such as Alexa, it’s possible to order a wide range of products just by talking into your smartphone. This technology makes it even easier to order online, since it skips the step of manually looking for items in search engines.


Conclusion

The current issues that have slowed the development of retail IoT deal with not enough infrastructure to support expansion of data and not enough certainty that this technology will generate a return on investment. Retailers that invest in IoT can develop closer relationships with customers and in some cases, accelerate sales.

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