Retailers that thrive will offer customers an enjoyable shopping experience tailored to them and tailored seamlessly into customer behaviors and shopping patterns. In recent years, customer habits and shopping patterns have experienced dramatic transformation.
Smart speaker ownership has seen an explosion, with 50% of UK adults now owning one. Through voice search technology, customers can shop online using voice searches without even needing to look at the screen!
Mobile Shopping
Mobile shopping is an ever-evolving trend that continues to disrupt the retail industry. Consumers increasingly rely on mobile devices for shopping online and are seeking brands offering customized shopping experiences.
New technologies, like chatbots, conversational commerce and visual shopping allow businesses to offer customers a smooth and personalized customer experience. Furthermore, companies can leverage data collected on customer behaviors in order to optimize pricing strategies, advertising and promotions accordingly.
Consumers are demanding more from online retailers in terms of environmental sustainability and carbon footprint reduction results, opting for brands that prioritize sustainability over profit – becoming part of a new generation of environmentally conscious shoppers. In response, companies are prioritizing sustainability practices while expanding eco-friendly initiatives.
Mobile Points of Sale (mPOS)
With mobile point of sale (mPOS), customers can bypass long checkout lines to pay for goods in an expeditious fashion. Merchants also benefit from offering on-the-spot services to their customers, enhancing customer experience while expanding sales opportunities.
These mobile systems connect businesses to inventory management and accounting software, helping to enhance operations and increase profits. Furthermore, these solutions enable companies to offer flexible payment options such as buy now pay later (BNPL) or bill splitting.
They come equipped with built-in Bluetooth technology that reduces wireless network demand and internet costs, making them perfect for mobile transactions such as market vendors, food trucks and sports venues to conduct credit card transactions on the move.
Big Data
After years of turmoil and disruption in retail, digital transformation continues to accelerate at an astonishing rate. Business owners and consumers alike have turned their focus towards omnichannel shopping, e-commerce and personalized customer engagement strategies.
As more traditional retail businesses switch to software systems for automation and data analysis, they often encounter unanticipated hiccups that impede the benefits of new technology. For instance, legacy point of sale (POS) systems may contain inaccuracies that cause sales floor quantities or backroom inventory levels to differ than intended.
Big data offers businesses many insights that can reduce operational costs and boost efficiency, including retail analytics which help small businesses prioritize customer engagement efforts by analyzing demographic and behavioral data of their customer base. Additionally, automated pricing tech can balance profitability against revenue growth.
Virtual Reality (VR)
Virtual reality (VR) immerses its users in an immersive digital experience by employing a headset with sensors to track user movements in a three-dimensional environment. VR technology has applications across many industries and represents an area of significant investment by technology companies.
VR has quickly become a favorite technology among gaming industry gamers and fashion brands like Dior to provide virtual shopping experiences. VR simulators also allow firefighters, pilots, astronauts, and police officers to practice lifesaving tasks safely.
VR can help manufacturers in manufacturing prototype designs quickly and cost-effectively, saving both time and money during research and development activities. Furthermore, it can show how a product will behave in different environments to help eliminate costly trials-and-error testing processes.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Artificial intelligence has transformed industries spanning manufacturing and transportation. Already, AI technologies are helping manage traffic flow, predict flight delays and make ocean shipping safer and more cost-efficient.
Machine learning (ML), one of the more ubiquitous uses of AI, employs algorithms designed to learn over time and become increasingly adept at performing specific tasks. ML systems can be employed in systems collecting vast amounts of sensor-collected data or used by businesses to better understand energy consumption and maintenance needs.
AI can also be employed in customer relationship management and search engines to develop more personalized marketing messages for consumers. Despite depictions such as Hal 9000 or The Terminator depicting autonomous AI as functioning independently from human oversight and guidance, this technology requires human oversight for proper functioning.
