Brick-and-mortar retailers have a significant opportunity to leverage digital technologies to transform the store. Digital upgrades will help keep up with shoppers' demands, whether it be "scan and go," personalization or buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS). Beacons, connected IoT devices, and smart digital hubs/stations allow for better customer engagement and rich in-store experiences. The technologies offer a wide array of opportunities: from indoor navigation, contextual promotions distribution, and customer self-service. By adopting innovative payment methods, retail brands move fast toward the digital future.
From Apple Pay to Tesco payments, consumers will soon be switching from cashless to cardless, so businesses should be able to keep up. Let's take a look at what retailers should evaluate when working towards in-store digital transformation, and how they can create real value for their customers.
Another similar tool acts as an augmented reality mirror that simulates makeup on the user's face in real-time.
Nike's new flagship store in New York, dubbed "House of Innovation 000," embodies the store of the future, with an app that creates digitally connected journeys for consumers to utilize mobile checkout, request try-on items throughout the store, or instantly shop in-store displays.
Think of furnishing a home and IKEA will likely come to mind. IKEA has heightened user experience with the help of a mobile application utilizing augmented reality (AR). IKEA Place, available on Android and iOS, is basically an app that allows you to fit pieces of furniture in your house, using AR via a smartphone's camera. However, utilization of augmented reality is not the only thing that will help IKEA reach its clients. It has launched an idea hub called Space10, a research and design lab aimed at creating smart products and solutions.
Starbucks has one of the most successful digital transformation cases in food-and-drinks retail. This coffee shop chain has launched its "internal venture capital-style incubator for digital technology," Starbucks Digital Ventures, back in 2009. One of its first products, its mobile application, became an integral part of the Starbucks digital ecosystem.
As a result, 6 million orders and transactions are served by the MOP every month.
Grocers such as Kroger have been quick to react with the launch of its "Scan, Bag, Go" technology last year, and many others have launched new technologies to accelerate the checkout experience. While eCommerce and mCommerce are considered the future, Amazon has implemented an advanced option for shopping in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Amazon GO has thirteen stores in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and San Francisco.
What is special about those stores is that there is no need to pay for the purchased items in the store. The new store concept is part of the Just Walk Out Experience, because – with the app – that's all you do to purchase something. After downloading Amazon GO app, customers connect their Amazon accounts. Using computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning algorithms (a subset of machine learning), in-store devices indicate which items were purchased by a customer.
After customers leave the Amazon GO store, the Amazon account connected with the checked application is charged for the purchase. You can watch the Amazon GO introduction video to see how it works. But the industry is famously slow to adopt new technologies, and many retailers wind up sticking to legacy operations for fear of upending painfully tight profit margins.
According to a recent study by Oxford Economics, only 3 percent of retailers have completed company-wide digital transformation projects. That's an easy statistic to avoid in today's burgeoning technology landscape.
According to Hitachi consulting survey, the largest barriers to improving digital maturity are a lack of internal strategy and a lack of knowledge and understanding of digital transformation, both at 29% of responses. At the same time, management buy-in was cited by a surprising 19% as an inhibiting factor, suggesting that despite the clear and present need to invest in digital, almost one in five firms are led by people reluctant to believe the hype.
Further to that, concerns over these barriers led a quarter of respondents to state they were "scared" to digitally transform, citing a lack of understanding around how best to begin transformational projects, coupled with a heightened fear of risk. If retailers are to survive this troubled period, then getting over these fears may well prove to be essential over the coming months.
Credits:
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