The past decade has witnessed a tremendous change in the way consumers shop for products. From heading to a brick-and-mortar store, and waiting in long check-out queues, to getting the products delivered to their doorstep, or placing the order online and getting it from a pick-up location, the shoppers have transformed in the most remarkable way.
The booming e-commerce industry has become a threat to retailers. Consumers crave for rich, seamless, effortless, and personalized shopping experiences. To provide this, retailers must focus on positioning themselves by giving the customers “what they need” with minimal obstacles and human interaction.
So, What’s Changing in the Retail Sector?
Digital transformation in retail has transformed brick-and-mortar stores into intelligent shopping ecosystems. Here are the major advancements currently happening in the retail sector:
AI-powered Assistants
AI-powered retail assistants help retailers leverage data more effectively and give the customers personalized advice based on the data. This saves a lot of time for the customers and makes their decision-making easy.
In-store Experiences
Customers find it more convenient to shop online. Thus, to attract them into retail stores, retailers create entertaining and interactive in-store experiences. They make use of AR, VR and AI to build customer experience strategies and deliver an augmented intelligent shopping experience.
Just Walk Out Shopping
It is an era of just walk out (JWO) shopping, where shoppers pick up whatever they want to buy from a retail store, and leave without having to wait for the cashier to bill their purchase. They have the app downloaded in their phone, which they scan at the store upon entering. The items they add in their cart get directly charged from their account.
Cloud in Retail
Retailers use cloud, AI and IoT to integrate their online and offline interactions. They gain insights about customer preferences, intentions and buying behaviour, to deliver better physical shopping experiences.
Hyper-personalization
Providing relevant, personalized experiences to the customers is the key to have recurring customers. Retailers add value to the customer experience, by using intelligent personalization in their customer experience strategy. They use technology to impact customer journeys and improve customer relations.
What Are the Challenges of Implementing Change?
The major obstacles that the retailers face while adapting to the current technology-driven culture are as follows:
· Lack of understanding of the latest competent technologies
· Resistance to implementing change
· Lack of technology investment
· Insufficient skill sets to gather and manage big data
· Struggle to implement new turnkey technology solutions
· The dearth in clarity of their technology status
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What
Retailers Must Do to Keep Up with the Disruption?
Digital transformation and the changing technology trends will be leading the retail industry in the years to come. Retailers must embrace the cultural shift and changing perspectives, to deliver exactly what the customers are looking for.
Start out small by implementing concepts such as data-driven personalization, inventory strategies, self-checkout systems, analytics monitoring, etc. Implementing the right technology can help retailers to improve the efficiency of operations and deliver better customer experiences.
Need help in starting your retail digital transformation journey? Gateway Digital is a reliable digital transformation partner, offering real-time digital retail solutions to bridge the gap between retailers and customers. To know more, visit www.thegatewaydigital.com.
