Consumer expectations.Customer experience. Consumer behavior. Does your retail business relate to these three terms? Do you know they are the major drivers behind the success of your business? So, to add real value to your business you must solve your customers’ problems first, listen to their growing shift in expectations and changing behavior. You got to mold your offerings, products & services as per their changing shifts. So, what will be the top transformative consumer trends in 2022?

Trend #1  Digital Comes First

Your retail business has already adopted digital routes to connect with your customers, right? But, is it sufficient or do you need to expand your horizon? So far your digitization journey has incorporated only these channels – your websites, your social media channels, email offers, and maybe more, however, you have added them as an add-on and not the primary channel for your business. Today, the consumer prefers retail experience exclusively on digital channels. B2B or B2C, customers are opting for their business routes via a digital channel only. For customers, digital comes first before the rest! Your business must focus on building an improved version of digital-first interactions with prospective or existing customers. Three ways your retail business can do this-

• Switch over to web & mobile apps
• Focus on digital-only products/services
• Set up a smooth omnichannel environment that will enable customers to have a seamless movement between channels for a cohesive customer experience.

Trend #2  Personalization & Micro-Moments

Your customers want personalized offers that exclusively cater to them. They want to feel special and not a part of your mass marketing goals. You must admit the fact in today’s age of hyper-individualization,  your consumers want to buy your product if it is uniquely customized to their requirements. They expect you to understand their unique needs and respond accordingly. This will lead your customers to build a meaningful rapport with your brand, your business. Moreover, they want all these very fast and immediately. They have plenty of choices as everyone is targeting them, not just you. So, focus on their unique needs and give them quickly before anyone does that! If you search in Google, the result will appear as ‘Micro-Moments’ for this kind of consumer experience. In a flash of seconds, you need to deliver to your consumer!!

Trend #3 AI-Powered Product Cognification

SMART is the ongoing trend and the cognification of products and services is increasingly making inroads to consumers’ lives every day.AI (Artificial Intelligence), IoT(Internet of Things)  are inevitably making products smarter and digitally powered thereby multiplying their capabilities manifold. For example, how consumers are buying AI-IoT-sensored refrigerators, cars, and other products that are technically SMART to use. Similarly, for your business clients and customers, even machines in factories are leveraging the huge potential of digital capabilities, increasing the efficiency and productivity in the ecosystem. Thus, products are becoming more and more intelligent while services are equipped with AI capabilities and other digital technologies.

Trend #4 D2C without Intermediary

Consumer trend is going to take a round-about turn in 2022 towards direct dealings and purchases with no brokers and middlemen or traditional intermediaries involved. The D2C(Direct-to-Consumer)trend is going to bypass intermediaries in the retail supply chain which means, wholesalers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, advertisers, all are connecting directly with their end-consumers/customers. As a retailer or business person in retail, you need to sync with this consumer trend and find some direct digital routes to your customers using varied online channels.

Trend #5 From B2C to C2C

How about current businesses like Uber, Etsy, Facebook, and many others conducting businesses online? The same pattern is going to occur in 2022 onward for the retail sector as well. Just for your knowledge, C2C (customer-to-customer) business means customers directly connect with other customers for the business. This is increasingly picking momentum and there have been instances when a b2c has transformed to c2c and succeeded in their journey. So, if you are not a platform, fully-fledged business, you can think of this c2c model and get started!

Trend #6  Subscription-based Services

An entirely significant consumer trend for 2022, the subscription-based products & services is the trend greatly driven by the rapid cognification factor. As a business, you can now delight your target customers with thoughtful subscription-based products and items when they need them. Your customers would just love to sign up if you personalize your offerings to their requirements and specific expectations. The bottom line is, your business can generate predictable revenues as long as you provide your customers with value-based products and services.

Trend # 7 AR/VR/XR

Immersive Experience is the keyword. XR (Extended Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), VR(Virtual Reality)digital tools and technologies are increasingly becoming popular amongst consumers and customers because they can get real-life experience out of them. Your customers get instantly impressed with these immersive& engaging tools/ technologies.

Bottomline

Today, consumers are highly prioritizing experiences over materialistic achievements. It means, they look for value-added services and products that are personalized to their specific tastes and needs.Consumers/customers are not ready to compromise on this ground and just cannot accept anything on their plates. As a brand, you need to connect with your target audience instantly else they will move to the next brands in a flash of seconds. So, get ready for the year 2022 and align your retail business according to the consumer trends predicted here!

Interested to know more about the consumer trends that can benefit your retail business? Contact us.

Data is the most important asset of the retail industry. Data is useless if it does not help companies to make smarter decisions for business growth. As consumer behavior is evolving with time, it depends on how data are helping retail companies to get relevant business insights, improving customer experience leading to enhanced business outcomes. Predictive Analytics is the AI /ML digital tool that works on data to derive valuable insights and predictions, forecasting sales thereby helping retailers to plan ‘What Next’ moves. How Predictive Analytics can boost the retail industry? How is it helping retailers to generate sales and have a competitive edge in the market? We will discuss all these points in this blog today.

1. Product Demand Forecast

As a retailer, you want your business to expand and products to connect with your target audience. If you know what does your target audience demand and their preferences, your products will never be out of stock or understock, right? To keep your business running smoothly, predictive analytics helps to forecast the demand for exact products your target audience wants. The technology helps to ensure that you have enough items stocked to sell and can meet demands adequately and can predict your profitable months as well as sales deficit. It means predictive analytics helps retailers to assess demand and sales performances. Product performance can be gauged by indicators such as sales margins, the number of units sold besides other metrics. It helps to improve consumer engagement and satisfaction.

2. Pricing Forecast

Pricing forecasts is a major functionality of predictive analytics that uses real-time capabilities of machine learning, and data science technology, to bring out adequate answers to questions that as a retailer you’d like to know in advance. Few sample questions that predictive analytics can forecast regarding pricing elements are:

• For maximizing sales what’s the right price point?
• What should be the frequency for running price-based promotional activities?
• What should be the optimal attainable price of a customer?
• How the competitive pricing will impact sales?

Apart from the above factors, weather forecasting, real-time sales data also help to alter as well as induce the most perfect pricing part (best pricing ).

 3. Managing Inventory

As we have mentioned earlier, too, how predictive analytics helps in estimating product demand and what your target audience wants, it also helps towards managing your inventory properly and up to the mark. A poorly maintained inventory leads to a loss in sales. As a retailer, you will never like to hold on to those products that are not yielding sales. Moreover, you will always want to replenish stocks that your consumers want to buy. Predictive analytics helps to predict demand for products that help you to manage your inventory.

4.  Marketing Campaigns

As a retail business, you need to prioritize marketing campaigns from time to time.  Your business needs a powerful marketing plan that helps to boost your business potentials driving the best ROI. An inefficient marketing campaign management leads to a poor ROI because you cannot estimate the right budget and varied inaccurate calculations done on your part.AI-ML digital capabilities of predictive analytics help you to gain actionable marketing insights, and suggest you adopt individual campaigning for a specific target audience and be more budget efficient leading to maximum conversion of leads.

5.  In-Store Optimization

Predictive analytics helps in online monitoring of shopping activities, as well as in-store data analysis. Varied digital tools & technologies, IoT sensors, and surveillance cameras that are installed in retail stores, on product shelves, help to monitor the shopping activities of varied consumers. The technology helps you in the following ways:

• You can identify your shoppers’ favorite routes throughout the retail floor
• You can identify and distinguish popular, most searched products on varied shelves
• You can count the total number  of visitors  in your shopping zone at different times per day
• You can adequately calculate the average visit time of customers
• You can genuinely monitor queues

Predictive analytics helps you to gather these valuable insights. Using these insights, you can configure store layouts, plan the schedules of your staff, can distinguish the ideal opening hours of your retail stores, reduce customers’ waiting time in queues, and increase the high level of security.

6.  Shopping Cart

 If you own an e-commerce retail store, you can leverage the massive capabilities of AI-ML-powered predictive analytics to optimize your online store, product categories as per existing online shopping carts of consumers. For instance, your customers while browsing your online shopping stores may come across products they like so much. They save them, add them to their shopping carts. When they don’t buy them,  predictive analytics tracks them and lets you know why they didn’t buy and how you should respond to this kind of situation in the future.

7. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing, online advertising are important segments of retail marketing. As a retailer, you’d think social media marketing involves greater expenditure than offline advertising. But using predictive analytics, you can manage these upfront costs and invest in social channels where you gain the maximum outreach and visibility. Predictive analytics can help you maintain a strong social media presence. You don’t have to stress regarding unreasonable expenses because the digital tool helps you to invest smartly on those social channels where you get the maximum ROI and prospect of acquiring new customers.

Conclusion

Predictive Analytics can help to predict the future of your retail business. Whether you are an online retailer sharing an online marketplace with bigwigs or small start-ups in the offline retail space, predictive analytics helps you to extract valuable actionable insights for your business outcomes in the right direction. The aforementioned AI-ML-powered digital capabilities of predictive analytics are just a few significant use cases in the retail industry. There are many more benefits yet to unfold. Stay tuned to this space and we will have further elaboration on this topic with detailed analysis.

Are you a retailer in the e-commerce industry or a physical retail store and changing consumer behavior bothering you? Want to know how predictive analytics can help you solve this challenge and grow your retail business?? Reach us.

If you are a retail entrepreneur, you must be knowing very well the significance of trends in your sector, and how it shapes the business eco-space. New trends come with every new year that hugely impact retail businesses across the globe. In 2020 as well as 2021, the trends saw a massive shift in consumer behavior, their fondness for online shopping, immense growth in e-commerce, social commerce, AR shopping experiences, influencer marketing, etc. The pandemic has only accelerated some trends like a surge in grocery platforms, retail media outlets overall enhancing online shoppers worldwide. Continuing the trend of writing about the trends, let’s discuss top innovative retail industry trends that will dominate in 2022 and beyond as well!

Important Stats

• By 2040, over 95% of total purchases are expected to be done on e-commerce platforms (NASDAQ)
• There exist over 2 B digital shoppers/buyers around the world (Statista)
• In 2023,  22% of the total retail sales globally are expected to be carried online mode  (Statista)
• Almost 51% of online shoppers do purchases using their smartphones (Finances Online)
• By 2025, half of B2B revenue is expected to be generated by e-commerce (Episerver)

Stats Main Source –  Influencer Marketing Hub

1. Online Stores in Offline Spaces

The trend has picked momentum over the past few years. Digital brands sell their products online while delivering tangibility to the whole customer experience. This means, online buyers can choose products online and can go to pick them in the brand’s physical retail store or in-store. Shoppers greatly benefit from this real-time interaction with the product they want to purchase. Several D2C brands, digital natives such as Casper, Glossier started their online retail but later on expanded to physical availability, too. As per sources, the digitally native retail companies/brands might open 850 physical/in-stores in the coming five years.

2. Rising Social Commerce

Social media platforms have become a big rage amongst people of all ages across geographies. Different social channels are offering shoppers to shop online in a seamless manner. No need to click a third-party website for shopping, but as a user, you can directly purchase from social channels via their apps or sites. Shops are present on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram apps, or sites, and while you can browse your accounts you can see your favorite products displayed by varied shopping brands, e-commerce shops.  E-Sellers can create their labels decorated with attractive banners, colors, buttons,  images, that can be accessed from specific social channels. They have a big scope to reach a larger global audience, too. In 2020, just as the trend picked up like how TikTok and Shopify collaborated, how Facebook allowed shops to sell their products, similarly 2022 is going to see again. Social Commerce sales in the US are estimated to rise by 35% with the current year-end.

3. Enhanced Influencer Marketing

Earlier, Influencer marketing meant just eye-catching captions, creative selfies, and product shots that used to be heavily edited. This year onward (2021), we are seeing how brands are collaborating with influencers and influencer content with the raw and real aesthetic appeal are tending now and will last beyond 2022 as well. Audiences love the original appeal of the brands and not an artificial coating and edited stuff. They want the real, authentic voice that brands project for their products. Influencer content that works as edutainment(education+entertainment) for the ultimate user experience, is allowing brands to fetch greater user engagement and ROI. Video happens to be the next big thing when brick-and-mortar retail stores are still to restart massively like the earlier phase. Consumers, shoppers love to see the product digitally and feel the experience. Videos on IGTV, Reels, Live Streaming, etc. are the ways influencer marketing is becoming the retail trend for 2022 also.

4. Value-Added Supply Chain

Supply- Chain forms a significant part of the retail chain. Digital technology and tools like AI-ML, IoT, Robotics are already helping the wing with added value. For example, automated warehouses with varied robots handling goods, doing the routine work there, autonomous robots, and drones for last-mile delivery are yet to become popular but may pick up during 2022 and beyond in full swing. Besides,  retailers can make smart decisions using process automation that will lead to greater value- service. Adopting IoT(Internet-of-Things), RFID devices, help to track, trace product, and this allows retailers to access authentic real-time data. Digital tools like AI-ML Predictive Analytics help to understand KPIs thoroughly. Automating documentation at all the stages of the supply chain helps to lower costs and increase efficiency and productivity. This is going to be the major trend in the coming years.

5. Voice Commerce and Digital Chatbots

Shoppers, users, b2b or b2c customers, all are benefitting from digital chatbots and smart speakers. Amazon Echo, Google Home, and other voice-technology-enabled smart speakers have entered the homes of online shoppers. As of now, 20 percent of owners of smart speakers use voice technology/voice commerce for searching, researching products they buy, shopping activities and tracking deliveries, etc. This trend is expected to grow to 52 percent in the coming 4 years. It is estimated that the global market of smart speakers could reach beyond 35.5 billion USD by 2025. Furthermore, retailers are focusing on meeting customers where they are. This is leading to the increased use of AI-ML-enabled digital chatbots and virtual assistants. The trend is going to stay in 2022, too.

Technology Will be the Key Driver

Trends become the trends when technology intervenes. Ideally speaking, in the era of digital transformation across industries, the retail industry is way ahead in terms of technology adoption and adapting to the changing demands, and ever-changing consumer behavior. While e-commerce is increasing its foothold, the essence of brick-and-mortar retail stores will always charm the audience. It is about amalgamating the two, the omnichannel strategy as well, that will enhance the core of retailing and trends ensuing in the year 2022, and beyond!

When was the last time you did online shopping for your favorite product? Did you make online searches in search engines or search bars on varied e-commerce websites? Did you opt for Voice Search in your search process? Your answer lies in your action – adopting voice search technology like Google Next(previouslyGoogle Home) or Amazon’s Alexa. Typically voice commerce technology incorporates an AI-compatible physical device that supports a voice virtual assistant to carry commands by users. Voice is the input command. For example, Amazon’s Echo, Plus, Echo Dot are a few smart speakers that act as a platform for Alexa to run. Due to the recent trends and challenges in the retail industry, voice commerce has been gaining momentum. In this blog, we will discuss the basics of Voice Commerce and its varied applications towards e-commerce in the retai­­­l industry.

What is Voice Commerce

Voice commerce means a smart virtual assistant powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI)that allows people, businesses to multitask, i.e. searching, categorizing, purchasing, trading, etc.  It is finely integrated with portable smart devices just like  Apple’s Siri, Google’s Next, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana. Using voice-commerce technology, customers can now purchase products merely by giving their voice commands to smart devices. Not just that, it also allows you to perform complicated functions such as solving your queries, carry out simple orders. Voice commerce technology is changing the way brands do communicate with their target audience. It is also changing the way consumers do shopping, the overall consumption habits of people. So, you see, how voice commerce is increasingly making the market more competitive at varied levels. A massive $40B voice-commerce sales are projected in the US by the year 2022.

Impact

Many e-commerce brands have started adopting voice-controlled virtual assistants (voice-commerce) in their digital strategies. Undoubtedly, voice commerce technology has created a significant impact on the e-commerce sector. You consider your example, how often do you use voice commands for search as well as placing your orders? How many times do you use Alexa or Google Assistant? If you are a business owner, enterprise, and ask Alexa/Siri, etc. to give comparative results of your competitors, competing e-commerce brands, you will be amazed at seeing the accurate results that flash before you.AS a consumer, voice-controlled virtual assistants or Conversational AI is not just limited to your shopping activity. It can do much more than searching for your queries or information, listening to your favorite music, or ordering food. Voice Commerce technology allows its virtual assistants to help you with recommendations, too. It can check your order history, search history, and based on that will come up with recommended products, or a good suggestion. So, this way voice commerce is helping the e­­­-commerce and the entire retail industry to a new level.

Benefits

The Voice Commerce technology is facilitating e-commerce stores or e-retailing businesses to leverage the evolving trend of voice-activated online shopping behavior of consumers. The following reasons can explain to you how voice-enabled search technology/ voice commerce can be beneficial for your e-commerce business:

1. Enhanced Customer Experience

Voice commerce is changing the way your customers interact with your e-commerce business. It facilitates a seamless experience for your customers and there’s no need to imply certain resources to complete the process successfully. As an e-commerce store owner or proprietor of an e-store, you can expect varied kinds of innovative solutions into the loop of your business. Indeed, the e-commerce business landscape is transforming and voice commerce technology is empowering it. Take, for example, H&M, a popular retail brand, has adopted a virtual stylist that recommends customers their most matching outfits. Helping customers in their shopping journey is enhancing their satisfaction level. If customers are satisfied, your business is automatically elevated to the next level. Thus, AI-enabled Voice Commerce technology is seamlessly integrating with customers’ shopping experience, and you should leverage this capability for your business gains!

2. Arousing Brand Connection

When your customers purchase products from your e-commerce store, they automatically get connected with your brand. When they start using your products, they develop a sense of belonging towards that product, considering it a major part of their life. This journey is greatly motivated by AI-enabled virtual assistants that give them the power to search and buy and connect ultimately with the brand they choose! The plus point is the fondness for voice search assistants by the younger generation. This generation is too keen on trying out newer technologies and leveraging the best of them. And this gives ample scope to your business growth. Since voice commerce technology follows the recommendation process, voice search brings out results that match with customers’ preferences and product descriptions. This is the positive business development for new e-commerce businesses. How? The search results based on preferences are not biased against brand presence but their relativity with the product search. New e-commerce businesses can easily get noticed now over the maps! Voice-Commerce or AI-based virtual assistants allow consumers to connect with the brands they love and seamlessly integrating with their shopping experiences.

3. Improved Search Engine Results

You can use keyword research in Google and other search engines to find out what people are buying and their current preferences for a product, brand, pricing, etc. This way, you can optimize keywords as per search volumes and related aspects. With the ever-changing demands of customers that are greatly influenced by shifting market trends, voice commerce-powered keyword research, search optimization does help online businesses to adapt accordingly. As per sources, if you give voice search commands over Google devices, the results that come out have certain correlations with Google’s featured snippets also. You can leverage this potential and optimize content that can feature you in the organic search results. If you give a significant effort to the SEO aspect, chances are more that you stand alongside top e-commerce brands in the search engines.

Helping Brands via Voice Shopping

There are two types of voice shopping that e-commerce businesses can leverage for Pre-Purchase and Order Placement activities. They are :

1. Voice Assisted Shopping- Voice commerce facilitates shopping beyond just placing an order. It helps customers in the pre-transaction phase of shopping with a comparison of pricing, quality, brand, etc. The technology helps to identify products to buy while comparing alternatives.is about more than simply placing orders. Shopping includes awareness and consideration phases in the path-to-purchase and these pre-transaction steps are already seeing increased voice engagement.
2. Voice Assisted Purchases – Digital tools & technologies, mobile apps, websites are helping customers with voice-assisted purchases and find their favorite brands, products. They are seamlessly led to the payment phase for order confirmation. For example, Alexa has this capability for ordering through Amazon.com while Google Assistant through Google Express.

On-Premise or Cloud for your E-Commerce Business

So, if you are an online retailer, e-commerce business, you can opt for voice commerce technology to enhance your business returns. You need to check your business requirement while adopting a specific deployment model. While Cloud-based solutions offer simple integrations with varied channels, On-Premise solutions allow your business to customize the workflow. Whatever model you choose, voice commerce technology gives your customers a natural interface. You cannot imagine shopping now without virtual shopping assistants. You can contact a mobile & web app development company to find the right voice-technology solution for your business.

If you are looking to build a modern e-commerce application along with integrated voice commerce capability – Contact us today!

The year 2020 will be recorded in history as the most eventful year of the century. The infamous COVID-19  pandemic has upended industries across the globe, and the Indian retail industry is one of them. The entire retail trajectory shows a stark shift in consumer behavior and the way retail business is operating throughout the country. As per BCG & RAI joint report, the Indian retail sales decreased for the first time in 2020 after decades of continuous growth. Brick & Mortar retailing suffered the most while e-commerce saw a big leap. In 2019, India ranked second in the GRDI,  Global Retail Development Index (GRDI). How about Indian retail growth prospects in 2021 and years to come? Let’s discuss in length the pre & post-pandemic status of the retail industry in India.

Consumer Purchase Behavior

In the Pre Covid era, years before 2020, the Indian retail industry saw a steady, smooth pattern in the buying behavior of consumers, their consumption pattern, and socio-demographic fundamentals were accounted for this steady growth. There was a demand for in-store shopping, and physical retail shops, malls, and supermarkets were dominant. In the meantime, e-commerce, b2c channels were also a big hit in the later part of the erstwhile decade.

In the Post Covid era, the aftermath of 2020, and the second wave that is still hovering around, the consumption patterns have started a big shift towards online retail and e-shopping. Indian consumers have become too precautious and preferring buying over online stores to visiting physical retail stores. Although lockdowns have been lifted in maximum places, the night curfew and weekend restrictions still playing hide&seek games influencing the physical retailing and consumers buying behavior.

Digital First Operations

In the pre-covid phase, the retail industry in India saw a mixed approach towards the digital adoption of modern tools and technologies. Retailers were not competing with retailers but with the influx of digital technologies to revamp the retail business model. While big retailers had moments with ‘Experiential Retail’, where adopting digital technologies was the core, small retailers (who fell into the unorganized retailing sector), failed to adapt to this change. Experiential retailing involved ATL, BTL animations, blended physical and digital shopping to deliver convenient accessibility, good customer experience, and solid in-store features. Digital technologies like IoT helped b2b in-store marketing efforts for retail brands. IoT tech helped retail in-store and malls in the lighting system, handling of electric switches as well as garbage disposal units, and the Point of Sales Units (PoS).

In the post–covid phase, the digital-first operations elevating to the next level. As per  Anand Narang, VP- Marketing & Consumers experience, Bata India limited, the entire financial year 2020-21 has proved to be challenging for retail business across India, due to pandemic as well as countrywide lockdowns. However, Sales in Bata reached 15% of the total sales of the previous year thanks to digital channels. Also, they divided consumers into three categories- Digital Natives, Digital Adopters, Digital Novices. Thus, the post-covid retail in India is delivering services as per the very three categories of consumers. For this, they are adopting the Digital – First Approach. The social media front also helping businesses to combat the intangible effects of the pandemic.

Major Drivers

Pre-Covid Indian Retail saw a big surge in online retailing. The major drivers of online retail were:

• Increased penetration of the internet
• Smartphone users increased massively
• Online shoppers increased immensely
• Make In India initiative of Indian Government

The Indian government’s initiative of ‘Make in India’ propelled focus on the local manufacturing that led to creating more jobs, increasing the GDP per capita, which started making people reliable and improve their lifestyle.

Post-Covid Retail in India also seeing the above-mentioned drivers as major a boost to sustain the harsh impact of covid led lockdowns and retail shops shuttered down. However, the three major drivers for the post-covid retail are:

• E-Commerce/Digital Retail Channels
• Mobile App based Shopping
• Digital Wallets

While e-commerce or online retailing is thriving exponentially in India, even customers are enjoying the competitive prices and ever-increasing options for products at the minimum rates. Retailers in India are indeed rejoicing the impact as they need to spend less on real estate and can reach out to maximum customers even in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

Predictions

• India’s e-commerce retail is expected to rise by 84%  to USD 111B by  2024 (source-IBEF)
• Mobile shopping to increase 21% annually in next 4 years
• Online retail penetration to increase by 10.7% by the year 2024 (it was 4.7% in 2019)

Conclusion

The retail industry in India is expanding after a short-term hiatus. As per a recent joint report prepared by BCG and RAI, the shift in consumer preferences has been categorized into four categories-  Mobile Phones, Staples, Food-Ordering, and Apparel. While some of these shifts are short-term, others will have long-term implications, for the supply-chain side. Mobile shopping, mobile apps, e-retail are going to thrive. The rapid urbanization, entry of foreign players, rising income as well as favorable demographics are going the be the major drivers for boosting the retail industry in India.

Are you prepared to cope up with evolving retail trends and challenges in these tough times? Reach us to know more.

Are you an etailer, or an online seller in the e-commerce platform? Then this piece of news is relevant to you. The Indian government has recently introduced  Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules,2020, that calls for certain mandatory curbs in online retail practices. Well, it all started with major complaints put forth by small businesses, brick-and-mortar traders that some e-commerce key players were flouting local laws. However, many private, public, and government agencies are expressing concerns, arguing that the very proposed consumer protection rules will affect “ the ease of doing business”.Not only that, it will greatly impact the overall investment sentiments, too! India’s e-commerce market is estimated to grow to a massive $200B by the year 2026 (source-Reuters), but, with the new set of e-commerce rules, what’s the probability of this figure? What’s your take on this? Let’s discuss the overall impact!

What Are the Rules

The Consumer Protection(E-Commerce) Rules,2020, applies to all e-tailers (electronic retailers) that are registered either in India or abroad, and offering goods & services to Indian Consumers. As per the rules:

• An e-commerce company will have to display the overall price, the total price of goods & services they’ll be selling, and there has to be a detailed break-up of other charges,if any.
• Mandatory mention of ‘Expiry Date’ of selling goods.
• Mandatory mention of ‘Country of Origin’ of goods & services.
• Mandatory display of details about return & refund, warranty, guarantee,  exchange policies, delivery, shipment, and anything related information.
• Sellers who are selling goods/services through a marketplace, the above details need to be given by the concerned e-commerce entity that’d be displayed on the former’s website.
• E-commerce entities cannot impose ‘cancellation charges’, cannot ‘manipulate prices’, and need to provide information about all the payment methods & their security, fees/charges to be paid by users, the contact information of the payment service provider.
• E-commerce entities have to display details of ‘sellers’ including business names, geographic address, ratings/feedback, customer care number, and whether they are registered or not.
• Provision of a ticket number for a complaint lodged by the consumer so that tracking is possible.
• Inventory e-commerce entities cannot falsely advertise, cannot refuse to withdraw services or take back goods.
• Banning of ‘flash sales’ but ‘conventional flash sales’ will continue.
• If selling imported goods/services, then need to go for a mandatory listing of local alternatives.
• Mandatory registration is required with DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade).

Impact on E-Commerce Players

The new e-commerce rules will be impacting all the online retailers, e-commerce players including the bigwigs, too. Due to the raised costs and other curbs, e-commerce dominant players will be forced to review their business models (source- Reuters). Business costs will increase. One major impact will be the rule that asks for local alternatives while selling imported goods. This move is seen as a major boost to ‘Made in India’ goods but not that healthy for e-commerce players. As per industry sources, this concept is all about promoting local goods but is not conducive for e-commerce platforms. However, it is up to you, as an e-commerce player, how to leverage the good sides of the rules levied and create an opportunity for yourself! Explore, and, Execute!

Another clause that is going to impact is the requirement where e-commerce companies/firms need to ensure that the enterprise related to them must not be listed as sellers within their shopping websites. Also, an affiliate entity cannot sell goods to any online seller which is operating on its platform.

­­­­­­­­The new Indian E-commerce rules are seen as a government alternative to formulating a stringent foreign investment law. The result will be higher restrictions for business dealings with sellers on the part of e-commerce players. Moreover, a ban on flash sales is going to change the shopping experience for consumers.

Impact on Sellers

Positive side- The new India e-commerce rules are going to impact sellers as well. So, if you are a seller, restrictions levied on e-commerce players to display their sellers’ advertisements, to promote them on their platforms, are going to put you in the steering seat. Means, your advertisement, promotion, will be taken care of by you only, and there won’t be any interference from your platform provider.

Negative side- The e-tailers, e-commerce giants cannot advertise sellers who are offering discounts. Moreover, the tight guidelines for not allowing any ‘misleading’ ads about quality, guarantee, pricing will be affecting sellers’ potential to expand further. Online advertising business will be affected, too. And what about the provision of details about Country of origin(CoO)? Major e-commerce players have more than millions of products listed on their websites. So, will that prove to be conducive for sellers on their platforms? Again, create opportunities out of the constraints!

Impact on Consumers

Consumers are going to gain!

Take the clause of cancellation charges & explicit consent from consumers. What does that mean? Typically, e-tailers clearly highlight certain items as non-returnable during the pre-purchase stage. They offer refunds or free exchanges to consumers. But now on, they need to ask for explicit consumer consent. Someone’s compromise is going to prove consumers’ gains! Moreover, there will be transparency in the shopping experience as brand names will show original ones and not the platforms they are selling at. Moreover, if imported goods are for sale, like those from China or any other foreign country, then there have to be alternative suggestions ranging from Indian local goods, too. And, you know the sentiments of Indian consumers. You guessed it!

Bottomline

There’s no qualm that the new India e-commerce rules are a giant leap for promoting  ‘Made in India’  products in the Indian market and beyond. At the same time, the e-commerce giants are also bearing the heat of restrictions and curbs levied upon them. But the underlying intent of the very e-commerce rules is simple – bringing transparency in the entire ecosystem and that is absolutely fine, fair, and genuine! After all, disruptions are known to bring about new changes, and can we expect something big unfurling, in the e-commerce segment, in near future? Let’s wait and watch!

Are you an Indian retailer or e-tailer looking to empower your business while abiding by the new India e-commerce rules in place? Reach us to know more.

When it comes to shopping, there’s been a massive transformation in terms of consumer behavior the world over. This year, and the last year, the inevitable circumstances have compelled retailers to adapt as per the newest trends in the shopping behavior of consumers. Shopify saw a rapid spurt in the creation of online storefronts, and e-commerce is growing as ever. On the other hand, brick-and-mortar shoppers still love the tangibility, immediacy elements of a physical retail store. A huge 79% of mobile-first shoppers(APAC) while they shop in physical stores, mostly search for information online (and you guess the global data). Hence, in the age of brick-and-click, it is necessary for retailers irrespective of the modes, to create reliable, and intuitive omnichannel experiences for customers. In the retail industry, 51% of all offline purchases done are digitally influenced. If you are a retailer, it’s high time you realize the importance & efficacy of omnichannel marketing for your business.

What is Omnichannel Marketing

You own a brand and your customers need to know it.

Creating awareness via multiple touchpoints!

A wide presence of your brand across multiple channels is what omnichannel marketing can be understood in the simplest term.

When you hear multiple channels, you’d mean online and offline platforms. Virtual platforms like websites, social media channels, mobile apps, web apps, WhatsApp, email, SMS, podcast, etc. are the places where your brand needs a substantial presence. Whereas, in the physical form, you can create your brand presence via owning a  physical store, conducting regular events, or having a call center.

All these channels have a common goal –  to ensure a positive, seamless customer experience. You should know that omnichannel marketing deals with both types of channels equally well bringing your brand image to the forefront and creating a marvelous relation with your customers. Remember, a bad customer experience leads to churning. And 67% of those customers acknowledge this fact. So, when you say you want to provide your customers with the best, positive and seamless experience, you need to mean it, too! Not just in the theory, but practically done. The entire formula is made to win, to retain your customers. Omnichannel marketing strategy prepares the formula for your brand, in the retail industry.

Why Important

Omnichannel Marketing strategy adopts the approach for delivering a thorough & consistent brand experience in the market, in the lives of consumers. It helps in meeting the massive, varied shoppers’ needs that fluctuate from time to time. keeping pace with this fluctuation is what omnichannel marketing does for boosting the retail industry. Let’s see few notable factors that make this omnichannel marketing so valuable for the industry to sustain, to thrive!

1. Competitive Edge

Your brand needs a special place in the mind and hearts of your customers.

Even your competitors also have the same goal. So, how to beat them in the race, and stand out in the crowd? You’d need to resonate your brand with the specific needs of your customers, promising excellent customer service leading to a satisfying shopping experience. Understand and adapt as per the ever-changing needs of your present customers. Identify the needs of your future customers (target audience), right in advance. You can identify the scope of making changes, if any, in the areas of product assortment, messaging part, sales channels, ad campaigns, and so on. Be regular, focused,  and consistent, in this approach, to get what you want,i.e, having a clear edge over your competitors!

2. High-Level Personalization

Consumers today are getting a convenient shopping experience via their mobile apps, web apps, across devices like laptops, desktops, tabs, etc. Show them up where they are and make their shopping journey a convenient and satisfactory experience. Consumers are always on the lookout for new products, new brands, new offers, on various platforms, Viz., Instagram & Facebook ads, Google ads and shopping, marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, physical in-stores, in a plethora of reviews, word-of-mouth, and what not! They are happy to respond to offers that attract them as they are targeted to their personalized interest levels. So, combine your technology and operations in a way that catapults your potential customers’ journey towards your brand. Your omnichannel marketing is the answer here. You can leverage all those data collected via varied user touchpoints. Then, you combine identity data with in-depth insights and customize personalized offers aligning users’ search and unique demands.

3. Social Integration

Consumers love to shop over interactive visual platforms and participating as they want. Being visually-oriented, they buy desired products directly from their preferred virtual shops over social media channels. Omnichannel retailers can leverage this opportunity to integrate social media content into their websites. They can also put their product listings in varied social media posts where customers naturally get attracted and come across these products they might want to buy.

4. Multiple Touchpoints

A major reason why omnichannel retailing is important because it allows shopping at every touchpoint of varied customers. Just take the example of DISNEY. The brand has its shopping platforms over websites, mobile applications, theme parks as well as in-store. Thus, under omnichannel marketing in retail, if your prospects add items from your website to their cart, they have to download and install your mobile app, too. Another example is the popular brand under the online marketplace is SHOPIFY PLUS. The brand allows you to integrate your store into Facebook directly, thus letting your followers, fans check out natively.

5. Boost Your ROI

Omnichannel Marketing has the highest potential to create and offer the best-in-class, complete satisfaction to your customers. This is a sure-shot way to boost your company’s ROI.

Focus on the 4 ways-

• Consistent messaging in your customer lifecycle
• Deliver a consistent experience at all touchpoints to improve LTV
• Communication to be constant(without gaps)
• Personalizing through data-driven marketing

Bottomline

Customers are spoilt for choices they have at their fingertips on multiple platforms. Closest to them is their mobile apps, for instance. As a retailer, you need to cut through the noise to drive them to your website, channel. Segmenting your customers based on their behavior, geography, demographics, is essential to create an effective omnichannel marketing strategy for your retail business. Find out their most favorite channels, time spent there, and what are items they like to add to the cart, and the likes. Then, based on segmentation you can map out their journey. Use the power of digital technologies, and integrate them into your inventory, sales, marketing, advertising channels, making your omnichannel marketing a holistic experience in all.

Would you like your business to outshine in the retail sector? Chalk out the suitable omnichannel marketing strategies for your retail business from our experts

The retail industry has a new set of enablers that facilitates its unique bonding with customers. Immersive technologies, AR and VR, have catapulted the dream ventures of so many retailers around the world. They believe that customer immersion would rather be a key to enhancing the overall customer experience in offline stores. The market value of AR and VR technologies is expected to touch a massive $97 billion by the year 2025. Surely, your retail brand cannot overlook the scope of adopting them now! In this age of Phygital, it is the clubbing of the physical world with the digital world that leads to the transformation of a retail space into a customer-centric space. AR/VR-led customer immersion is a compelling way to boost engagement today. Let’s see how you can leverage these immersive technologies, AR/VR, to boost your business growth.

AR/VR  Benefits

1. Personalized Customer Experience

Big retailers across the globe have realized the immense benefits that personalized, targeted marketing entails. So, why would you use AR and VR in your retail store? These digital technologies help in creating personalized marketing strategies for varied platforms, viz., physical stores or offline retail stores using mobile phones, digital kiosks, web shopping platforms, and so on. The personalized marketing strategies using Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual reality(VR) help to provide your customers an enhanced level of shopping experience. As a retailer, you are not providing a simple 2D banner but 3D graphics-rich content, which does the wonderous job for you! Yes, the ultimate result is the total immersive experience for customers increasing engagement. Don’t you think this is increasing your sales, too? After all, happy customers mean happy retailers!AR tools like Magic Mirror can design customized apparels, or any products like cosmetics, as per the demand of your customers shopping in the retail store. Thus, AR and VR do create a customized, personalized in-store shopping experience leading to an increased users’ buy rate. Using these technologies, You can get a much detailed view of your customers’ preferences so that you can curate their shopping options for the future.

2. In-Store Navigation

Big retailers are focusing on the minimum physical contacts in their in-stores. For instance, AR applications enable in-store navigation a very easy process for the consumers. Like, there is signage (AR-based) for product-finder, pathfinder, virtual concierge, lift& learn facility, in-store catalog, in-door maps, and so on. This way, you can help consumers to find products quickly, and even can call ‘staff’ on requirement.

3. Contactless Trial for Products

 If you are a big retailer, owning a big retail showroom with a huge collection of apparel, cosmetics, accessories, wearables, you must be having a large customer base (and loyal customers, too). Today, people don’t want to go to the trial room and try clothes, or, they even don’t want to use testers (that are repeated with customers until done) while buying cosmetics. AR magic mirror with its aesthetic appeal handles this challenge, too. AR with video walls in-store and AR app mobile phones, people just love shopping offline and online on this platform.

4. Improved Customer Engagement

Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) technologies help to improve your customer engagement as well as personal involvement to a higher level. As said earlier, your customers now can use the AR-powered in-store navigation tool to locate the items they exactly want to buy. It helps in searching for products in your store very easily leading to smooth purchasing. Moreover, Your customers can have a virtual tour of your store from any location, just from wherever they are present now. Certainly, these AR/VR experiences boost a greater level of customer engagement. Your customers can get required product information using VR headsets leading to their immersive buying experience while using AR tools, they can see their items to buy in the real world, for example, digital kiosks, digital magic mirrors. Hence, as a retailer, you can benefit from AR/VR in-store as well as in the online retail segment.

5. Enhanced Content Marketing

The Augmented Reality(AR)and Virtual Reality (VR) are tremendous marketing too. For example, in-store, digital signboards can attract customers by detecting their age, gender and persona and displaying the related items onscreen (that can have the AR-led check-out system, too). Thus, you see, AR/VR can provide you with engaging, intuitive, personalized content for your digital marketing strategies. Even you can capitalize on these technologies for marketing on social media channels and sites. It is not just about displaying non-interactive ads that are providing product information to the users, as that does not always create users’ interests. However, using AR and VR technologies, you can now evoke your users’ interests by providing an engaging advertisement option to them which might lead to checking out the product, too!

6. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction & Retention

If your customers are happy, as a retailer you are also happy. If they are happy with their shopping experience in your retail store, chances are very high they will return to you next time, too. You create a unique bonding now with your happy customers’ thanks to the AR/VR immense capabilities that engage them, enhance their overall shopping experience. AR and VR provide personalized services to your customers that help you to retain them. Also, it is very less likely that they will return your products after purchasing. Thus, the technologies help in boosting customer satisfaction, retaining them, and guaranteeing you a profitable return in the competitive market. So, the adoption of AR and VR technologies is conducive to your retail store bringing in a greater ROI for your business.

7. Improved Employee Training

Do you find training your employees, staff, sales associates, etc. an arduous process? It is indeed a complicated process for every big retailer in offline retail stores. Even it would incur huge costs if any employee commits mistakes during training, leading to financial loss to your retail company. When you use AR and VR tools, the whole training process becomes smooth with zero risks. It happens this way, these capabilities facilitate training by simulating real-life environments and training situations. Your employees can now be trained smoothly using AR/VR-powered tools wherein they can get hands-on experience handling customers, helping them find a product, emulate buying behavior using Magic mirror, etc.

Augment your Retail Business

AR and VR are the big digital powers that can boost your retail business anywhere around the world. Being a big retailer in the market, it is your competitive edge that can drive customers to revisit your in-stores,  online stores, or both, owing to their immersive and personalized shopping experience. These digital applications can help you immensely in accelerating the decision-making process, generating more sales, and building a large customer following for your business. So, have you adopted these digital technologies in your retail business? Think over, and act soon!

Are you a retailer wondering how to incorporate AR/VR capabilities into your business? Reach Us today and avail of the immense benefits conducive for your retail business.

The retail sector features as one of the most dynamic and thriving sectors in the Indian economy. Digital technology is empowering retail to grow in stages which accounts for more than 10% of India’s GDP. Digital Transformation is changing the landscape of the retail industry in India like never before. The industry is adopting digital tools and technologies to stay abreast of the consumers’ demand irrespective of the b2b or b2c business segment. Integrating physical with digital experiences, e-commerce, on-demand grocery apps like Bigbasket or Grofers, online retailing, etc. are redefining retail spaces to a large extent. All about digital transformation adoption in modern retail which is moving faster beyond the usual hubs. Digital adoption is indeed playing a big role in shaping the retail sector moving to tier-II and tier-III cities, as well. As per IBEF (India Brand Equity Foundation)report, the Indian e-commerce industry is going to become the world’s second-biggest e-commerce market by the year 2034 and will overtake the US e-commerce industry.

Digital Transformation Adoption

Digital Transformation in retail means using digital technology, implementing a new business model conducive to business type (b2b or b2c) at the best affordable cost, that leads to the improvement of existing processes,  and increasing revenue streams for the same. At the process level, digital transformation adoption in retail means doing a job with zero effort and zero-skill as well as zero-learning curve! Because it entails the adoption of the right digital tools and technologies to kickstart the process in all departments. Thus, digital transformation means transformation in all the departments.

The three major elements of the retail operating and business model where  the digital transformation impacts are:

• Strategy – It means segmentation, positioning of products, operation formats, business models that talk about pricing, location, assortment, size, etc.
• Front end elements– customer-related ones like store layout, promotion, merchandising, customer-centric loyalty programs, marketing, communications, POS solutions, pricing, and so on.
• Back end elements – These elements include supply chain, digital procurement, logistics & warehousing, vendor management, mix & planning of assortments, finance automation, people.

Let’s gather significant detail on the adoption scenario of digital transformation in retail in India.

1. Shift from Legacy Model to Digital App

The legacy model of Indian retail would comprise the traditional mode of functioning in all the departments. People have to travel a long distance, spending tremendous time standing in an unending queue for placing orders, payments, etc. For instance, the entire supply chain (manufacturers, wholesalers, dealers, distributors, retailers) faces myriad challenges at respective levels. However, by adopting digital transformation, Indian retail is slowly bringing them into the digital mode. Digital apps in all the streams, customized digital solutions catering to departments, e-commerce, online order platforms, Cloud system, etc. are defining the retail sector in the country. The retail sector is opting for varied web and mobile-based applications, solutions, and varied digital integration within departments thereby facilitating the seamless experience for the stakeholders as a whole.

2. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is an integrated online marketing model that retail companies, irrespective of types,b2b and b2c, all leveraging their immense capabilities to achieve business goals. Digital Transformation adoption particularly deploys these technologies to tap niche markets as well as segmenting as per demographic details. Thus, digital marketing is an online, digital tool, which aims at getting leads, engaging customers, building brand –loyalty. The adoption varies from channels like website development, application(App)development, Google Adwords, social media marketing, mobile marketing, or SMS marketing, etc.

For instance, the Customer Analytics tool. Take the example of a leading Indian fashion retailer, Shopper’s Stop. The retail company started adopting digital transformation in 2017 delivering a seamless experience to both offline and online customers. Just that it collaborated with some digital marketing company who guided the step-by-step process of digital transformation adopting mandatory tools like AI-powered Predictive Analytics. This led to implementing the CMX capabilities (Connected Mobile Experience), throughout its 80 retail stores in India. Thus, this sort of tool gives a single view of the dashboard that displays the insights of connected customers in-store, their buying behavior, in-store tracking, online-tracking (if buying online), and interprets customers’ data providing valuable insights and predicting future trends. Thus, Customer Analytics is redefining the retail space across the country.

3. Digital Operations

Optimization of  Supply-Chain Management is another facet of digital transformation. Retail stores in India are adopting digital transformation where the digital capabilities of the IoT technology have unparalleled usage. The IoT technology along with  GPS sensors, RFI,  can help a retailer retrieve accurate data, for example, specific data about temperatures under which certain items are being stored, transit timings, etc. These data ultimately help in improving transportation quality, and one can act on time to check if certain products need temperature variations, adjusting high or low, as per requirement at that moment thus averting any sort of losses. Moreover, accuracy is very important when managing inventory in a retail store. Proper inventory management can only increase efficiency in a retail company. Digital Transformation is facilitating the adoption of Blockchain in inventory in the retail space in India. The digital technology, Blockchain, can automate the whole process of inventory management, accurately automating the process of product shortage and product surplus based on real-time consumer demand. This automation saves huge investment in managing costs smartly.

4. Payments

Digital Payment services are playing a significant role in the Indian retail sector. Cash payment is not any more popular now for inherent challenges involved. Retail digital transformation adoption in India relies a lot on the online payment system. People in India are doing shopping, businesses across the retail segment over their mobile phones, most of the time. Retailer- e-commerce sites, or retail online stores, are allowing online payment services to end-users and customers thereby increasing the shopping, momentum, conversion rates on sites. GooglePay, PayPal, Apple digital wallet, PhonePe, are a few examples of the popular digital wallets and payment modes in retail in India.

5. Customer Care

Customers are the core of retail business anywhere. In India, addressing day-to-day problems faced by customers in varied areas, for products, for services, etc., the legacy model is existing in the form of call centers. But, by adopting digital transformation in their customer care department, retail in India can redress many challenges using digital methodologies. Applying digital transformations to the customer experience, retail companies can address, can empathize, as well as can minutely understand almost all the varied touchpoints of their customers. Digital transformation allows data interpretation and can show the way improvements can be done. Retail companies have to emphasize customers’ data and find out their preferences, patterns, behavior, etc. This also facilitates forming a model specific to provide a holistic customer experience. All sorts of customer data provide valuable insights on them, leading to determine areas to invest yielding significant ROI.

6. Business Models

The retail sector in India is widely adopting this facet of digital transformation which is rather no-capital-intensive physical store. Many retailers just do not need to have their websites, because they can sell their products on third-party sites like Amazon, Shopify, Woocommerce, etc. Thus, these retailers can leverage their host site’s logistics, pools of shoppers, inventory, payment services as well as, the analytics about customer data. As per an estimate, in India, e-commerce is growing faster than brick-and-mortar retail outlets, paving the way for digital retail to boost its share of trade from the current 5 % to 15 % approx. by the year 2025.

Challenges

In the retail sector in India, a common challenge is an extensive lack of getting an accurate customer insight for the business. Most often, this data is entangled, trapped inside the organizational silos of marketing, sales, finance, customer service departments. This prevents from providing holistic views and insights of the customers. Moreover, retail businesses see customer experience merely for customer acquisition and customer service. They miss out on the broader parameters that can catapult businesses to a  higher level. Another significant challenge that is restraining their growth is the reluctance to invest. For any business returns, substantial capital investment is needed from time to time. And it is a worldwide fact how digital transformation is catapulting retail businesses across the globe.

Conclusion

The Indian retail industry has awakened now and widely adopting digital transformation, however, in phases. Even the neighborhood Kirana stores, small retail stores amounting to small businesses across the country, are slowly but steadily empowering employees, customers, adapting to the current change. No doubt, digital transformation is truly about getting the best ROI and promising a bright future growth in the sector.

To understand more about the retail industry challenges and trends that are shaping digital transformation, visit our exclusive site pages.

The retail industry is constantly innovating because it is primarily ruled by consumers’ ever-changing behavior. When it comes to adopting new technologies or integrating within existing systems certain models, the result is an entirely new incarnation of the older version. Despite intermittent challenges, retail has seen a spurt in business over the years. In 2019, the global retail sales had reached $26.29 trillion, while in 2020 the global retail e-commerce increased by 27.6%, a massive $4.280 trillion (source: e-marketer, 2021). Today, advancements in technology have created greater avenues and innovations in the retail industry. We will see what are the latest innovations within the industry that were not existing till a few years back but are creating waves in modern times.

1. Facial Recognition Technology

Facial Recognition in retail has the capability of scanning multiple reference points on a particular person/shopper’s face. Just like each person has unique fingerprints, similarly, this technology helps create unique ‘faceprints’. This way, the technology identifies their unique attributes via respective ‘face prints’ whenever they enter shopping avenues. Like, until the advent of this technology, retailers could identify customers using loyalty cards, for example, at the point of sales only. But today, using facial technology, they can know beforehand the information about people when they come in-store. This way, they can deliver to them a personalized shopping experience.

The technology helps in-

• Identify requirement in advance
• Know customers’ spending
• Distinguish high-value shoppers
• Loss prevention as it decreases shop-lifting

2. Geo-Location Technologies – GPS, IPS, and IoT

Another innovative addition is the location tech, the geo-location technologies like IoT, GPS, IPS,  that are greatly helping retail in-stores today. These location-based technologies help to boost customer relations with intensely personalized communications leading to satisfactory business outcomes. They allow customers to select and order right on their mobile phones, and when they reach the store, they can get their purchases right there (staff waiting for them with those purchases). Customers receive them, try them ( apparel, for example) before finally buying the stuff. So, the tech allows staff to be alert as their customers enter the store. Combined with data analytics, the very location tech helps retailers to identify trends in specific geographical areas. This enables them to expand, position their stores in the proximity areas. Customers can navigate easily and find the exact shop they want to visit.

3. Robotic Store-Assistants

Autonomous delivery robots, or robotic store assistants, are finding rapid inroads towards the retail segment. Yes, robots have started interacting with customers in retail stores. This innovation has caught the eye of the entire industry such that in the global robotics market, which is expected to reach 87 billion USD by the year 2025(source: BCG), half of the share might go to the retail market only. These robots helping b2c and b2b retail business both. In the supply chain, these robots, who are laced with inbuilt 3D scanners, can check stock, can identify errors, if any, in pricing, as well as locate items that are misplaced. This facilitates retail businesses to optimize store layouts and processes (based on the data gathered by robots) leading to enhance customer experience. Further, they help customers navigate through stores and connect them to human staff members over video-conferences in case of emergency.

4. Augmented Shopping

Phygital is the newest version of retail innovations. Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality(VR) are some of the recent digital technologies that have come as an innovative inclusion within the retail ecosystem. As per one survey report, 61%  of US adults feel that AR has greatly influenced their decision to choose where to shop. It works both the ways, live in-store retail experience, as well as online app-based and smartphone-camera based live in-store experience. For instance, this innovative retail technology is allowing customers to try outfits in an apparel store standing before the ‘magic mirror’ or the ‘smart mirror’. No need to go to trial rooms now. Similarly, the very augmented shopping allows retail app allows shoppers to access products from a shop’s inventory and, view them live, on their mobile phones, and try items virtually. For this, they have to install the very shop’s app to capitalize on the augmented shopping experience. Customers don’t have to physically try on outfits they want to buy, just superimposing items and sharing images with friends on social media, all these things are immensely helping gain a superb customer experience.

5. Cashierless Check-Out Stores

This is the latest entry to the innovations in retail and can be understood from Amazon’s ‘Just Walk Out Sytem’ on Amazon Go retail stores.COVID-19 has further given an impetus to this retail innovation because the entire concept entails a touch-free shopping system. Customers can now walk out of a store after purchasing their stuff, and those items are automatically scanned, and the amount would be debited from their respective accounts while checking out. So, this retail innovation talks about the contactless, Cashierless, automated self-checkout options. As per a report by McKinsey, the very innovative, IoT-enabled retail checkout system, or, Cashierless stores, can help retail businesses to save from $150billion up to  $380 billion every year, by the year 2025. How? Because 75% requirement for cashier-staff will be reduced by the automated check-out system.

6. Voice Commerce

Voice Commerce is one of the most favorite and usable retail innovative technologies ever as of now.APPLE’s product called SIRI or AMAZON’s ALEXA, Google Assistant, all are enabled with voice technology. This voice-enabled technology allows users to give voice commands for retail shopping searches, price comparisons, product searches, etc. over smart speakers, and not just smartphones or mobile phones. As per a survey, nearly 60 million people own at least one smart speaker system in their homes. And as per forecasts by Juniper Research, voice commerce technology will grow beyond 80 billion USD, by the year 2023.

7. AI-Powered Product Recommendation

Retail innovation is incomplete if we don’t mention the massive inclusion of Artificial Intelligence in varied domains. AI-powered chatbots, conversational bots can now directly converse with businesses, customers and facilitate a seamless customer experience. As per Servion Global Solutions, AI will empower 95% of customer interactions by the year 2025. Currently, retail is being powered with product recommendations, Scan & Go Shopping, Facial-Recognition, Voice Commerce, all are using massive AI capabilities for their unique functionalities.

Conclusion

Thus, technological advancements have always triggered innovations in the retail industry from time to time. Adopting digital tools and technologies, retail has always been upbeat about the latest innovations that would empower them with massive capabilities to soar in the market. Physical in-stores, digital space as well as Phygital are the apt words that can describe the way retail is existing today.

Interested to know, how innovations in retail can empower your business?Contact our Experts.