The world of retail has gone through some tremendous shifts in recent years, and it continues to evolve at a pace as we’ve never seen before. The growth of e-commerce and the impact of the pandemic has radically changed how customers think about their retail experiences, and organizations have had to adapt accordingly in order to keep up.
To remain relevant and to keep things cost-effective, forward-thinking retailers have had to embrace the rapid acceleration of retail-focused technology to stay on the cutting-edge. This article will look at 5 important retail technology trends that you should be keeping an eye on if you want to stay ahead of the curve.
- Sophisticated Inventory Management Systems. One of the most important components of running a successful retail operation is to be able to manage supply and demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. You want to make sure that you always have enough stock on hand to service your fluctuating demand, but you can’t afford to over-prepare because of the storage and wastage inefficiencies that can eat into profitability.
It’s here that many organizations have turned to AI-enabled inventory management systems to help them optimize this. Around 47% of retailers have already made this a reality, according to Statista. With machine learning, retailers can use algorithms to evaluate the demand in real-time, providing data-driven insights that help to fine-tune how inventory is managed. This is a game-changer for a just-in-time inventory philosophy, and it would only be possible by leveraging advanced AI systems that can make sense of the overwhelming complexity.
- E-Commerce. Retailers have to be constantly thinking about their online strategy if they are to stay competitive in our e-commerce driven world today. Running a successful e-commerce operation is all about the technology from start to finish. You need to ensure that you have an intuitive and user-friendly customer journey that still remains secure and effective while tying in natively to the rest of your internal systems. One of the most important recent trends is the push towards automated marketing funnels that work for you to convert potential shoppers into buyers. Almost 500,000 websites are making use of this already and that number continues to grow month after month.
- Augmented Reality. As many retailers seek to recreate in-store experiences virtually, augmented reality (AR) has become a big talking point. If a customer can search through your catalog and see what a specific object might look like in their space, it is a really powerful selling factor. Retailers who are creative with their AR implementations also create natural opportunities for viral word-of-mouth marketing because of how special the experience can be. In fact, research from ThreeKit showed that 71% of consumers would shop more if they could use AR. In our new hybrid world of in-person and online, this is a magical way to connect the two seamlessly.
- Self-Service Checkout. One of the biggest friction points in a traditional retail experience is queueing up at the end to pay for everything that you’ve picked up. Many companies are pushing the boundaries of this by implementing advanced self-service checkout capabilities. A customer can use an app to scan the items they are purchasing themselves and pay via the app without ever having to stand in a queue. Some are even taking it further by installing facial recognition software in the store to track what you’re taking automatically, making for an even more futuristic experience, as evidenced by the Amazon Go prototype stores. All of these are only possible because of advancements in technology, and they point towards what the future of retail might become.
- Personalized Shopping Experiences. One of the benefits of analyzing and drawing insights from big data sets is that it opens the door for truly personalized shopping experiences. Combining micro-targeting, machine learning, and CRM tie-ins, you can get to a much more granular level of customer knowledge than ever before. Once you understand a specific customer’s buying behavior, you can be proactive in crafting unique offers and opportunities for that person that is highly relevant and precise for their specific situation. Research backs this up with Epsilon publishing that 80% of consumers are more likely to buy when they receive a personalized shopping experience. Instead of painting everyone with the same brush, you can inject nuance at scale and provide a one-on-one shopping experience that will wow your customers.
These are just a few of the key retail technology trends that we see in the industry, but hopefully, you can see that the potential is near limitless here. The entire sector is evolving and adapting, and if you are to keep up, you should be focusing on bringing these new technologies into your space as soon as you can.
Where Do We Fit In?
In order to take advantage of any of the trends we’ve discussed in this article, you’ll need to ensure that your key technological infrastructure is secure and fit for purpose. This is where we come in. At Consolidated Communications, we pride ourselves on delivering the most advanced communications solutions to keep retail organizations like yours going forward. Our proven fiber network reliability serves as a foundation to craft a scalable technology platform that works so well that it melts into the background, allowing you to focus on doing what you do best.
If you’d like to explore what a cutting-edge advanced communications solution can do for your organization, be sure to get in touch today and let’s see how we can help!