The Future of Retail: Top Technologies Disrupting the Industry
The global retail industry is vast, complex and diverse. As per financeonline.com the global retail market will touch $29 trillion by the conclusion of 2024. The current growth rate is a robust 4.9%. Online sales will make up 19.9% of total retail sales in the US this year. E-commerce sales will touch $10 trillion globally by 2026. Today, there are many technologies transforming the retail industry. We take a look at some of them here.
Electronic transactions are safe, secure, and fast. Physical cheques take time to process. Cash can be stolen or misplaced. The future is digital payments indeed. Some retailers even accept payments using Bitcoin. Smartphones can be used to make digital payments. Nowadays most of us have smartphones. In areas where traditional banking services are not supported, customers and purchasers have the option of making digital payments conveniently, securely, and swiftly? just by using their respective smartphones. Google Pay and Apple Pay are two such channels for making digital payments. Earlier people mistrusted digital payments when the technology was in a nascent stage. With the advancement of technology as well as popularity of digital payments it is now a widely accepted choice of payment.?
Many retailers are turning to AI-powered chatbots as an integral part of their different business operations. Chatbots are superior to human operators as they operate 24/7. Other benefits include quicker, better, and more accurate response. Chatbots answer common queries made by customers and others. Retailers can offer existing and potential customers better service. If the customer has doubts or issues related to status of delivery, mode of payment or other retail related queries chatbots will answer them in a jiffy. It is important that the client or customer locate the chatbot easily on the retailer’s website or app. Other important functionality includes ease of use and multilingual support. Nowadays chatbots support multiple international as well as local languages. Chatbots are able to suggest suitable products to individuals based on their personal data, location, browsing history as well as past purchases. This ramps up revenue, profits as well as brand image.
In remote areas it may be difficult or impossible for retailers to deliver goods to customers. Drones have become more sophisticated nowadays. One can remotely control the drone from source to destination. They have the capability to avoid obstacles and take the shortest route. As drone technology improves, we will see them more widespread in terms of usage. Mass production will bring down the cost of drones.
With the growing realization that environmental damage has reached a critical stage and timely intervention is necessary to save our planet, retailers are now sourcing products that are environment friendly. The former are making sure that after usage of the product there is no environmental damage. The supply chain needs to be optimized for least carbon footprint. Also, the packaging of all the products should be environmentally friendly. Today’s environment conscious customers prefer brands that are environment friendly and benefit society. Realizing this fact, retailers are increasingly prioritizing products and processes that have minimum carbon footprint.
Thanks to these technologies shoppers can virtually try on apparel, obtain an accurate impression on how the retailer's furniture will look in their homes. AR(Augmented Reality)? and VR(Virtual Reality) go a step further by creating virtual stores for customers to explore and select desired products. These cutting edge technologies bring the physical world and virtual world closer by giving realistic lifelike simulations.
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Another technology that is revolutionizing the industry is artificial intelligence. Thanks to the latter retailers can predict future demand, offer customers personalized offerings as well as optimize inventory management. Using AI retailers can stock up products when there is more demand. When there is less demand, they will restrict purchases. AI also helps with pricing strategy such that retailers don’t overprice or underprice their respective goods.?
This is the era of hands-free shopping. It is indeed very convenient to ask questions just by your voice. You can search and purchase various products by just giving voice commands. Technology has advanced so much that shopping online is as easy as interacting with another human. Siri and Alexa are two such voice applications. Voice is more intuitive and convenient rather than typing or clicking. Smart speakers including Google Home and Amazon Echo have simplified the full lifecycle of shopping. Purchasers can give voice commands to search for goods, compare prices and buy the desired item(s).
Numerous retailers use robotics to perform needed tasks. For example, transportation of products within the warehouse. Robots are superior to humans in both efficiency and performance levels. Retailers that leverage robots have a competitive advantage over retailers that do not. Many industry experts have predicted that the usage of robots is the future of retail.
Social media has a vast following. By tapping this medium’s power retailers are visible to millions of users. You can do shopping easily from your social media feeds. This kind of retailer selling strategy is smart, convenient, and interactive.
The Role of CoffeeBeans in the Retail Industry
CoffeeBeans has helped retail enterprises to streamline POS, integrate with multiple e-commerce platforms and ensure smooth and secure payment processing. We also designed the retail system to seamlessly scale up in the event of increasing demand for a particular retailer's products and/or services. CoffeeBeans has the requisite technical and domain expertise to enhance, transform and streamline retail processes.
The future of retail is promising with disruptive technologies driving retail growth. Retail technology is poised for a major leap with superior customer experience as a top priority. Today's customers expect innovation in retail as well as sustainability in retail.