10 Hot Technologies for Retailers in 2021

What turns a good shopping experience into a memorable one? Is there a secret recipe for making the consumer experience perfect every time? Putting ourselves in customer shoes – what made us go back to the same store again & again. Was it the familiarity of the store, the inspiring design, the ambience? Or the helpful staff, their energy, and a great customer service? Or just the products? Simply put, it was the overall experience. 

To be a world-class retailer, the rules aren’t complex. A retailer can have a customer for life-time, provided it continues to offer relevant products, familiarity & consistency of service and an awesome experience throughout its customers' life-stages. To stay relevant, technology can be big differentiator, as it enables newer & better experiences and also gives consumers the freedom to engage in most relevant ways.

So, here is a list of 10 new hot technologies that retailers can leverage to stay relevant in 2021: 

1. In-store Interactive Technologies

Nearly 60% of shoppers these days look up product information and prices on their smartphones in stores, info sometimes not easily available with the sales staff. That’s where, new technologies like - AR or Google's Rich Communication service(RCS) or 'Scan a QR code' can fill the gap. For instance, American Apparel created an AR app that allows customers to scan signs in-store and get product information like reviews, ratings & color options. Retailers can have consumers 'Scan a QR code' or send queries over a retailer's WhatsApp business account or send an RCS message to receive info like pictures, videos & website links.

Perch Interactive’s ‘Lift & learn’ product engagement platform, allows brands to use its innovative displays to deliver digital content during purchase journey, leading to 30%+ lift in sales. While Puppy Cube, a mini smart projector, can convert any surface into an interactive touch screen allowing sales associates to answer shoppers' queries.

Similarly, consumers can know the food's freshness details like date & origin & sellers’ sustainability solutions, by using 'Scan a QR code' tech that allows sharing of certificates of origins to win their trust, with Blockchain or 'distributed digital ledgers technology' enabling it in the backend. Gartner predicts that 30 % of world’s top brands like Nestle, Dole & 20% of top grocers like Carrefour, Walmart along with IBM's Food Trust provenance project, would implement projects leveraging Blockchain by 2023 in supply chain, food safety & traceability.

2. Voice Commerce

Voice commerce or voice-assisted commerce is a type of conversational commerce in which a shopper interacts with a brand site or an app or any other responsive service and buys a product via voice recognition technology. Today, Google’s Home, Amazon’s Alexa & Apple’s Siri allow you to search the net and do a range of activities. The use scenarios can vary from older shoppers placing order just like they do at their neighborhood stores to working parents & family members adding items to their shopping-list.

An Adobe study of 1,000 U.S. consumers found that people use voice commands via smart speakers for not just music(70%), weather(64%), asking fun questions (53%), but also in early stages of the shopping process namely, product research(47%), creating shopping lists(43%) and for price comparison(32%).

Bottlerocket Wine and Spirit retailer in New York City, has created 'Bottle Genius' service using Amazon’s Alexa voice tech to answer shoppers’ queries and suggest whiskey flavors, occasions & serve recommendations.

As per Zion Market Research, the global voice-based smart speaker market will be $30 billion by 2024. Voice Commerce backed by smart speakers and digital voice assistants is set to grow.

3. Conversational Commerce

Conversation has been a cornerstone of the buying & selling relationship. In conversational commerce, this whole relationship happens using devices(smartphones, tabs, PC’s) between a shopper and a real agent or even a chat-bot. Chatbot magazine defines 'conversational commerce' as “an automated technology, powered by rules, Natural Language Processing(NLP) and sometimes AI, that enables online shoppers and brands to interact with one another via chat, voice or video interfaces.”

When consumers are searching for a nearby store, Google Business Messaging(GBM) gives them the option to message a chatbot, find products available in-store, shop remotely and even call the store manager. Similarly, brands have launched WhatsApp Chat stores with AI powered BOT’s or even store managers to help customers shop.

The global conversational AI market size is expected to grow from $ 5 Bn in 2020 to U$ 15 Bn by 2024. Retailers can offer personalized recommendations, real-time support, shopping & immediacy for its customers. 

4. Virtual Showroom ~ "the Experiential Ecommerce Store"

Shoppers are different – some like the ease of ecommerce websites, while others prefer the feel of a real-world store. That’s where a virtual store comes in – call them “the experiential ecommerce store”. The virtual store is a digital, 3D and high-tech version offering almost the same personal experience consumers enjoy from a real store. Brands can develop a 3D version of their flagship stores and shoppers can view it via their website or an app, navigate the digital store as if they were moving inside a real store like the street-view in Google Maps. While browsing a product, shoppers can like, save, share a product and can click to chat, call or video with a sales staff. If interested, they can try-on apparel & shoes via an AR service.

Consumer love the immersive experiences, interactivity & ease of shopping. Companies like Hero, Obsess have launched or are trialing virtual stores for brands like Clarins, Ted Baker, Woolrich, Samsung, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi’s to name a few.

XR Association which promotes growth of VR, AR & immersive technologies found in a survey of 6 US industries that the retail sector is the most optimistic at 80%, when it comes to future applications of XR technology.

5. Personalization

Digital personalization has enabled customized emails, websites, apps basis customers' behavior and has allowed continuation of consumer journey seamlessly across multiple channels like stores, app, mobile and web. It is now equipping the sales staff in-store to make better recommendations to customers based on their browsing history or complete a sale with a voucher for an item already added to digital cart.

Retailers are now leveraging smart customization technologies to allow consumers do personalization via online & offline channels. Take LaserPecker, a portable engraver, that makes laser engraving possible on any personal or home product via transferring images over a smartphone. Or NailSnaps that allows women to upload any picture in their mobile app and receive custom designed nail wraps for applying at home. Or Print-a-Drink, a 3D printing robotic technology that can inject a 3D pattern to create personalized drinks in resto-bars. Or Cocoa Press, that allows consumers to choose a design on a screen and get 3D personalized chocolate printed. Or Pool Live AR that enables players to play better pool games by creating a personalized optimal path to hit the cue ball and knock the others.

Sailthru's ‘Retail Personalization Index’ that evaluates how well top retailers are personalizing the customer experience across channels found that Sephora, Nordstrom, Rent the runway, Best Buy were best-in-class in 2019. 

A BCG study shows that brands that deliver personalized experiences with digital tech and consumer’s data are seeing revenue increase by 6% - 10%. With personalization, sectors like retail, healthcare and financial services will experience a revenue shift of $800 Bn to the 15% of companies that get it right over the next 5 years.

6. Digital Invoices

Today technology is available for retailers to move from paper-based and e-invoices to smart invoices that kick-start the post-purchase relationship-building journey. With clickable links, smart invoices gives the opportunity to capture consumer details like name, mobile, email id for loyalty program. Smart invoices can carry links that ask consumers to share their shopping experience via NPS survey, drive cross-selling opportunities, activate a warranty, know loyalty points balance, get vouchers for next purchase et al. 

7. Checkout-free & MPOS

Self-checkout counters have been around for a decade, allowing shoppers with fewer items to do self-checkout. But, customers still had to queue up, scan items, re-bag them and then finally pay. However, a bunch of next generation technologies like vision-based software, along with like roof & shelf cameras, smart-shopping baskets/carts with weighing scales, sensors and AI & ML are enabling 'checkout-free' experience. The Amazon Go store that pioneered this in 2018, allowed its shoppers who had the app to enter the store, pick whatever they liked, bag it and just walk out, the payment being automatically deducted from their card. While large retailers can afford to invest in vision-based technologies, smaller establishments like pubs, books stores, apparel & footwear stores, colleges etc., can benefit via alternative affordable technologies like QR codes, smart shopping carts and RFID tags. Companies like Grabango, AiFi, Zippin, Caper offer AI-powered checkout-free platforms, enabling retailers to deploy frictionless shopping in stores.

Retailers can also deploy MPOS(mobile point of sales) systems, allowing sales associates to finish the sale where ever the customer is in-store instead of asking them to queue up, thereby increasing customer-centricity,

A survey by 451 Research in 2018 shows that 86 % of US consumers said they left a store due to long lines, leading to potential $38 Bn lost sales. As per Progressive Grocer, the benefits of a cashier-less world to retailers include higher revenue, more people in customer-facing roles & reduction in shop-lifting. 

8. Green-Tech

Technologies that help drive sustainability agenda and are environment-friendly are called Green Tech. As per Mckinsey, there are multiple technological innovations available today that are helping retailers drive their sustainability agenda in their operations & supply-chain. These include e-vehicles, e-trucks, cheaper & long-term energy storage batteries, plastic recycling, light efficient LED lighting and carbon capture & storage to reduce green-house effects. Retailers can leverage AI & ML algorithms that automatically take into account weather conditions & long weekends to develop better forecasting solutions, order management and offer real-time automated offer recommendations to shoppers and reduce their environmental footprint.  

With millennials leading the adoption of greener products, retailers & brands have a ready market of consumers. From offering Upprinting Food’s attractive-looking 3D printed foods made from food waste sourced from supermarkets to Unocup, a new lid-free paper coffee cup with a unique folding design to create its own cap to Skipping Rocks Lab’s 'Ooho', an edible water bottle made from 100% biodegradable brown algae that replaces plastic bottles, retailers have alternatives today.

9. AI- & Tech-enabled “Relevant” Services

“Deliver a product a customer wants, and they will like you. Involve them in personalizing it and they will remember you. Create a memorable experience via sticky services and they will become advocates.”

Nordstrom, which earned 54% of its revenue from digital channels & services became the first retailer worldwide to have majority of its revenues come from digital. It is a shining example of how new age-tech is being used in launching a number of industry-first services. E.g., Not only its mobile app allows shoppers to reserve products to try-on in store, but also notifies the customer when they are about 300 m away from the store that a sales promoter has kept their items ready for the trial. Nordstrom raised the bar further by offering shoppers to pick up orders 24/7, even if the store was closed. Nordstrom’s Trunk Club service offers customers to get personalized fashion advice from a stylist, who then curates and ships a personalized trunk-full of clothes, shoes & accessories to them. Customers keep what they like and return what they don’t. 30% of Nordstrom’s customers shop across more than one of the digital touch points, and spend 4-11 times more than average.

Stitch Fix, the $1.7 Bn. market leader in online personal styling service, uses recommendation algorithms, data science & stylists to personalize clothing items based on size, budget and style and sends curated clothes & accessories to shoppers.

Ikea, via its app, helps its customers to save their shopping list, pre-check stock availability, navigate inside the store, find the items and any special offers and book home installation services.

10. Drones, aka, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAV’s)

The adoption of drones has increased in the past couple of years across sectors like insurance, entertainment, retail, news channels, delivery & logistics, healthcare, airline and construction. In retail, companies like Amazon, Walmart, JD.com are pioneering their use in store inventory management, warehouse operations & deliveries. Inside a store, drones can scan through aisles and check inventory information with speed and accuracy than what humans can do and bring refills when an item is running low on the shelf. Inside a warehouse, drones have the floor layout and can locate items faster and easily than humans and help workers locate the containers for managing warehouse operations faster. Outside, retailers like JD.com use drones to deliver orders from regional locations to JD's dedicated 'village promoters' in each village, who then deliver to customers. Drones are also being used for real-estate planning by clicking pictures / videos of areas where a new store or warehouse may be planned for understanding the topography & shopper traffic.

Frost & Sullivan estimates that drone adoption will grow from 2.4 Mn units in 2019 to 2.9 Mn units by 2023, and a market that is expected to triple to $ 43 Bn by 2024.  

As a retailer, which technologies to try and which ones to wait for maturity, depends upon your company strategy, focus on customer experience and stage of business growth. What is important is tech innovation has to be supported via leadership, open culture and an ability to embrace change and teamwork between CMOs, CTOs and the rest of the organization. So, start by piloting a small use case, measure RoI in terms of customer satisfaction, revenue and gradually scale up. Develop the MVP(min. value prop.) & empower a small team(lean startup) to move ahead in an agile way. As a retailer, not trying is the biggest risk in today's business context. So, fail fast, but learn faster!

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