Technology has been an area of intense focus in retail industries as a way to achieve both the goals of decreasing cost and increasing revenue. When technology integrates with retail business, the retail industry will be rich with data from human interaction and algorithmic computations. Here are some evidences that evince that technology is leading to the transmogrification of the Retail Industry.
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In-Store Touch Screen Kiosks
One of the most intriguing technologies independent retailers can use to ameliorate the shopping experience is an interactive kiosk that uses touch screen technology. It speeds up the service, provides better customer engagement and simplifies the entire shopping process. You need not go around and search for items, you can search it through the kiosks and get to know where the items are placed or the customer can directly place an order through the kiosk.
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Biometric Systems
Big stores, large scale businesses, banks and brands in general have a natural inclination towards implementing a high level unassailable security system. Biometrics provide options of inculcating security options such as fingerprint recognition, voice identification, iris scanning, face detection etc., and improves the customer experience concomitantly.
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Beacons
Beacon technology creates a nexus with the customers using Bluetooth Low Energy Technology. The proximity based marketing strategy that Beacons work on, is exemplary. Retailers use Beacons to provide more personalized, real-time messages, offers and promotions at the right time and the right location. A customer is bound to buy a product that he crosses by, when he receives an instant notification about the offers/ discounts on that product.
Beacons send push notifications to the customers as soon as they cross the product. Beacons are said to multiply sales by 10 times in the coming years.
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Connection to Social Media
Social media platforms such as
Facebook,
Twitter,
Pinterest have transformed from mere photo sharing and chatting tools to Business Development and Marketing tools. Recently Twitter had experimented the ‘Buy’ button similar to ‘Like’ or ‘Tweet’ with a few groups of sellers. Retail Business have infinite space to expand on Social media apart from the store. A word in social media has the potential to spread like fire. Posts or Tweets regarding offers or discount on social media becomes more powerful.
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Robots in the Retail Business
While the number of staffs or labors in a store determines how many customers they can handle at a time efficiently, the current trends in the technology has led to the decline in the number of employees. Human labor is being replaced by robots. Selection of items, adding to the cart and more options that happen physically are performed by robots. The seamless technologies used in Retail Robots are stupefying the customers thereby giving them a new experience and converting them to a loyal customer of the product or store. Robots are able to provide multiple in-store services like Out of Stock detection, Over Stock detection, Promotion compliance, New or Discounted Product Compliance etc.
Sky is the limit when one tries to ponder upon the possibilities of implementing technology in retail business. The positive effects that it has on sales and customers is unbeatable.
