The Role of Data in the Smart Store of the Future

In the smart store of the future, brick and mortar retailers will have many new technologies at their disposal.

These may include digital signage, digital receipts, video facial recognition, iBeacons, SMS push notifications, loyalty marketing offers, the targeting of wearable devices, location marketing, interactive in-store retail robots, and customer analytics and product analytics integrated in ever improving ways into both the experience of the store itself and marketing.

Better use of data & analytics at level of the physical store can help independent stores stay in business. 

Insight as a Driver of Consumer Loyalty 

The data that stores collect will enable an improved personalizaton of the customer experience for shoppers, especially those high-value shoppers who opt-in to customer-centric apps, services and loyalty programs that boost how stores are experienced. 

Indeed, virtual reality (VR) and the internet of things (IoT) will likely transform the brick-and-mortar independent small store, into a new kind of experience that will make shopping more entertaining and for merchants, make Big Data more actionable. This will add yet another layer to the unified commerce experience of the smart store of the future. 

Data as the Missing Link for the Physical Store to Compete 

Data is truly key for the advent of the smart store, that will combine great human service with data points that are non-intrusive for the customer but still useful for the retailer to improve the store's performance. 

After all, for retailers, having a well-designed and well-executed digital signage strategy means being able to better interact with shoppers and even encourage more in-store trips; at a time when e-commerce continues gaining momentum, getting shoppers in the store is crucial, writes David Salisbury of Star Cloud Services.

Data optimization and analytics, like a store's location, will be able to drive store traffic by optimizing the customer experience with personalization, prediction and by providing shoppers with more immersive experiences.

Data as a Location 

If for retail, location has always been a key determinant and primary consideration of commercial success for an independent retail store itself, Data itself, is the location of the future.

Analytics, insights and automation based on those insights will be key to driving more traffic to the store, improving loyalty, personalization and building high-value relationships with the new consumer.

Stores Optimizing Big Data at the Service of the Customer

Ecommerce stores naturally being on the web excel at data-mining and thus independent brick-and-mortar stores must find retail technologies that enable them to catch up and remain as intelligent about their performance, products and most of all, their customers.

Better customer analytics and the ability to match people with products is a big step for physical stores to gain insights that Ecommerce stores already have. Algorithms that suggest on Amazon what you might be interested illustrates the cross-selling of the future that's automated. But how will this evolve in the smart store?

Predictive Analytics as a Precursor to a Unified Personalization of the Shopper Experience

 If data is a location in the future, predictive analytics is the immediate insight that reaches the customer of the future. Personalization will make the unified omnichannel experience of the shopper, totally fluid and non-invasive by adding value, choice and richness of immersion to each touch point.

Retail will not stop changing, it will continue to adapt to a consumer that is quickly adopting new technologies pushing the relationship between consumers and brands, retailers and shoppers to new expressions of the human spirit and our appetite for convenience, exploration and appreciation of the consumer experience. 

Bright future for Data-Centric Stores and Smart Store Analytics

From where I stand, I see an explosion of retail analytics for stores taking shape especially in the period of 2017 to 2020: 

1. Retail analytics is about to enter a golden age where physical stores can automate valuable and actionable insights from multiple data points. 
2. The internet of things will connect devices making the Big Data of Retail actionable and more integrated with the shopping experience. 
3. New channels such as VR, chat-bots and digital signage will bring products and accessibility of shopping experiences to life in new ways. 
4. The Mobile shopper will have more value through mobile and cloud POS integrations that will engage customers better (SMS, in-app, real-time). 
5. Improved Customer, product and in-store analytics will drive better inventory decisions, improved customer sentiment insight and of course highly targeted marketing and loyalty offers. 

I hope you enjoy my futuristic view of how the Retail store is evolving, I follow a number of retail technologies and news that you can find here. One thing is for certain, the Big data of Retail is beginning to heat up. 

How do you see physical stores leveraging analytics, insights and automation with new retail technologies in the future to optimize the customer experience?