The ascent of online shopping actuated a plague upon physical stores. Internet businesses like E-commerce capitalize on consumer’s longing for comfort. Well, physical stores still have a chance to compete against e-commerce and stay in the game. Convenience is not the only bait that attracts consumers, but its technology that plays a crucial role here to push consumers online. Consumers are tech-savvy these days, they want everything at the convenience of just one click, be it money transferring, buying or selling, subscribing or unsubscribing to services, booking a flight ticket, and vice versa.
What attracts the consumers the most is the technology.
The retail business has a lot of potentials to stay ahead in the selling game. The right technology can be utilized to solve business processes and provide end-to-end customer services, this way the retail industry can construct a unique and personalized shopping experience for their end-users by understanding their preferences. Techsaga, a leading IT company for the retail industry, provides a unique opportunity to architect a new tech-fueled and customer-centered retail business model to change the face of traditional retail business in constant industrial flux.
Below, 8 significant digital tools are discussed, how retail companies can take advantage of digital transformation in the retail business.
Digital Marketing
As the number of mobile and laptop users is exponentially growing with each passing year, thus digital marketing has now become more important than ever for retailers to connect with shoppers. Companies are stepping up their digital marketing games with digital coupons, virtual storytelling, email, and increased advertising. In fact, it is believed that the top area for new spending in business is digital marketing, due to customers now being glued to internet-enabled devices.
Data Collection and Analytics
Data collected from customers helps organizations to bring improvements in their business processes and enhance customer experience. Data collected needs to be analyzed to provide better services and assist your customers. Data analysis should be applied at every stage of the retail process from tracking popular products, forecasting future sales to optimizing product placement.
By identifying your customers' interests, you can design a constructive strategy to deliver the required products to your customers and handle them by employing marketing strategies. In brief, most retailers collect data to analyze customer behavior to improve the shopping experience.
Retail Inventory Software
RIS is a software system for tracking inventory levels, orders, sales, and deliveries. Companies use this to avoid overstocking or outages of their products, ultimately saving them from losses. Scalable and robust Retail Inventory Software assists in organizing inventory data that was previously stored in hardcopy format or spreadsheets. If you have multiple warehouses or are based at different locations, where your products are stored, inventory software can effectively manage inventory in an easier way.
Workforce Management Software
Productive software that can automate and control the workforce management process, which basically consists of the following four steps.
Workload forecast.
Staffing or staffing planning
Programming calendar and shift scheduling.
Daily performance control.
Efficient workforce management software keeps track of work activities and related points, generates automatic timesheets, tracks projects, creates detailed team reports, payroll, billing, team performance, and additionally, supports store productivity.
POS system-
The Point of sale (POS) system can be employed to collect customer information, view livestock across different stores, record transactions, and provide e-receipt to customers. POS guarantees smooth customer interaction, gathers customer information quickly, gives business owners more time to build trust, and overall contributes to improving the customer experience. Business owners can also check inventory levels accurately instantly in an easy way.
Sensor data-
Sensor data is revolutionizing the retail industry. The most popular container for sensor data is the beacon. Major brands strategically place tiny beacon sensors around the store that connect to the customer's phone when Bluetooth is enabled and the retail app is already installed in their smartphones. This connection allows retailers to see when users are in the store and what they get and then can offer individualized discounts based on that information.
Face recognition-
Facial recognition technology helps retailers to better understand customer preferences. Facial recognition can track where customers are drawn to the store, determine customer demographics, and even prevent theft. By tracking where most customers first go to the store, business leaders can develop the most productive store layout for their customers.
Augmented reality-
Augmented Reality (AR) has evolved significantly from its origins which was a project called Virtual Fixtures funded by the US Air Force in 1992. Often, this tool is designed in such a way that it interacts with the user's camera feed. However, AR is so powerful that it can be an important software sales solution for the retail industry. Consumers can now effectively try on clothes and test products through AR. For example, within Sephora's mobile application, users can virtually try makeup in real-time. Placing a filter on top of the live selfie allows users to see what the makeup product will look like on their face, another example is eyewear store’s mobile applications where users can virtually try on eyewear and find out which shape and design suit them the most.
To be precise, It all depends on the requirements and the purpose of the software you want to manage your business. All of this technical tool helps retailers save money, improve operations, increase productivity, and streamline customer service and marketing efforts. Technology has great potential in the retail industry. It can do many things, such as increasing sales, reducing shoplifting, eliminating ques, making the supply chain more efficient, and much more. It will change the meaning of shopping from a physical store and will make the experience more valuable than ever.
Techsaga is a leading IT company that is digitally transforming the retail industry, real estate industry, Health Care industry, Media and Entertainment industry, Logistics and Transportation, Travel & Tourism, Banking & Finance, Education & E-learning, and many more from more than a decade. Visit our website for more info:
