The continued spread of the Coronavirus has impacted the whole world and eventually stopped the growth of many sectors including the retail sector and affecting the offline retailers profoundly.
The pandemic has forced the industry to shift its business model and focus on online capabilities. The pandemic has also altered the consumption volume in the retail sector and now the consumers preferred home deliveries over visiting stores. Retailers have been experimenting with a myriad of ways to provide the best services to consumers. But they need to understand how they should use the technology and find new innovative ways to build up the new business model anddriving the business digitally.
In this covid era, E-Commerce is the new normal, with government restrictions, lockdown, there is a decline in visits to the mall. Many big leadershave disappeared from the market while few digitally transformed their businesses. Digital transformation is going digital to improve the services andbring up the satisfaction of the consumers which will enable them to tackle the challenges of the Covid-19 and exponentially grow the business during these unprecedented times. The retail industry has started accelerating the technological revolution and started establishing its presence in the virtualworld, coming forward launching its websites, application, and digital portals.
Technology is changing at a very fast pace and so is every industry including the retail sector. People are shifting their habits from Facebook to Instagram, blogs to vlogs (video content), google to pinterest, so on, and so forth. Digitally transforming the Retail Industry will bring a revolutionary change in the field of business. As it will help inscaling the business up and to run a successful business one must adapt to thechanges required for the growth of the business. The technology has beenleveraging the retail sector and here are the different tools for digital transformation in Retail:
Machine Learning- Machine learning can improve the retail experience for the consumers and create a bond between retailers and customers. It helps the retailer to understand better and predict what the customer wants. It enables retailers to identify shopping patterns and understand buying behaviors and accordingly adjust promotions and specialoffers to boost the sale and trust of the customers. Personalize product recommendations, tweak pricing on the fly, and create forecasts based onhistorical trends and customer preferences will help in boosting the sector.
Artificial Intelligence- Customers can now shop any day, at any time as per their convenience, and expect the same from the organization’s customer support. Here chat bots come to the rescue, Chatbots act as a digital store associate and are acost-effective and rapid response service tool that can help seal conversions and create new sales. Artificial intelligence (AI) is an important wayto deliver the attentive 24/7 service that shoppers now expect.
Unified commerce- Unified commerce is the term used to define a retail software system capable of joining all your business inventory and customer data from all sales channels. The unified commerce make the buying experience easy and convenient for the shoppers andlead to boosting the sale by giving the customers multiple channels to use tomake a purchase.
Benefits
Increase purchasing decisions
Customers are the most affected because of lockdown-restrictions, social distancing, and long queues at the bill counter. Customersare looking for different ways to shop and waiting for their favorite brands toprovide services through online visibility, where they can make their purchasesin the comfort of their homes.
Increase digital presence
At present, many businesses have started investingin digital presence through social media, websites, applications, and YouTube.It shows how your business appears online through search engines, content, andwebsite. In such a way, potential customers interact with the brand through chatbots and can get assistance regarding the brand.
Gain more sales
Digital signs act as beacons that help tell the customers what to do and where to go. People feel more confident in their shopping decision which leads to an increase the sale. Digital signage in retail can beused to direct customers to specific products, upsell items.
Demand prediction
Digital screens are a great way to catalog items and understanding consumer buying trends and respond to peaks and troughs of specific products. You can do inventory check and create countdown on exclusive products you are left with, which is a great way to increase demand while atthe moment. Digitizing the retail sector also helpful in effectively managing the inventory.
Trend Forecasting
With data analytics tools, retailers can have a better understanding of the latest trends of their businesses. Data analytics algorithms can be used to forecast future trends based on buying habits and dataproved by the technology. Forecasted trends tell us what needs to be promoted to increase revenue and what does not need to be promoted.
Challenges
Customer’s data privacy and sharing concerns
The data breach can unlatch the growth of digital retail.With an increase in mobile technology and with various data breaches happening around, customers are racing to secure data and privacy. Retailers should give customers the ability to specify who and what can access their personal data,when and for how long by employing a digital identity management platform.
Technology
To be successful, there is a need to have a strong foundation if the retail sector is looking for digitizing completely. Moreover,selecting the right technology can be a bit challenging. Also, it may require asignificant amount of risk and time to understand the new technology and infrastructure required for the organization.
Complexity
Digitally transforming the business can be a bit complexfor the retailer to handle all things by themselves. Challenges in managing thesupply chain, providing a personalized experience to the shopper. It requires outsourcing to ease the burden and a partnership with customers, stakeholders,and enterprise entities to co-establish the digital journeys.
Despite the above challenges, retailers will embark on their digital journey after understanding the different technologies that can help in digitizing retail business and driving growth. Online shopping became a reality, transformation in the retail sector has completely rewired the shopping mechanism, online shopping is considered more gratifying than visiting the physical stores. Partnering with technical understanding and industry know-how can help in transforming your business inside and out.
