Retail is the fastest growing industry with its definite set of multifaceted and varied business processes and requirements. Today, the ever-changing era in retail has emerged the challenge of addressing various disruptive technologies and ‘the digital customer’ who always demands to access the services or products via sundry ways and channels at their suitability of location and device. With such story, the retail entrepreneurs are convinced to take a halt and exchange their ‘run the business’ strategy hat with that of ‘change the business’ strategy. The focus today is completely on innovation.
Taking the curtains away, and paying attention to our actual concern “the power of mobile technology in the retail industry for next 5 years’. FIVE YEARS can be the period between being caressed in a cradle to starting the school. The same years’ difference between a pro-democracy peace muster to current 250,000 deaths in Syria. In the context of technology, the five years difference is a release of Apple iPhone 4 to iPhone 6. The time is adequate enough for emerging technology to take space.
Now if we look back to last 10 years, no one would have realized that mobile technology could bring such wide impact to the retail industry. But, look at it now, the growing device convergence has made mobile phones the device people love to carry with them all the time.
Lights on few facts:
- 50% store transactions will be done via mobile point of sale
- 53% shoppers search online coupons on their mobiles
- 80% of individuals look forward to mobile-optimized product information while browsing your store.
With retail industry, not just the traditional practices got an advanced edge but even the mobile technology became ubiquitous. Hence, it is important to discuss how mobile application development company will play a major role to restructure retail in upcoming years.
Artificial Intelligence – Empower Customer Experience
AI is taking the retail business community by storm. Yes! The technology is doing wonders in powering the customer experience. The retailers are adopting AI in order to build better personalization, increase the traffic and analyze the unstructured data. If you have an Amazon account you would be familiar with a feature of customer recommendations. It is an AI application that caters your bespoke product based on past purchases, popular trends, and browsing history.
AI has revolutionized the marketing systems with “better marketing functions and processes, ROI and accountability, and voice assistants.” It has even marked its presence in analyzing dark (unstructured) data from social channels or other interactive media, conveying about the customer behavior on the web. For example, the social channel Instagram has reformed their ads by innovating their marketing strategy. The machine learning algorithms help them to understand users’ need and likes. With this information, it displays similar products that the user may like.
In the future, such AI application like Siri and Alexa will be used as consultants.
Augmented Reality – The New 3D Visual Experience
Augmented reality is the emerging evolution of eCommerce product visualization. Its capabilities have already connected the online and offline channels establishing an extraordinary retail experience to see growth. In regards to mobile technology, the retailers have started using augmented reality for their product marketing campaigns. The renowned automobile companies like Nissan, Toyota, and BMW showcase the car models with a three-dimensional view of the QR codes printed in the sales magazine. Such technology definitely convinces the customers to make a wise purchasing decision as they have all the information required.
Digital Wallets – Payment Technologies
Today, the foremost need of any consumer for an online transaction is security and ease. A secure and easy checkout option can be fulfilled with digital wallets. In the context of mobile apps, the eWallets mobile apps and in-app payments serve the advance edge by eliminating the complexity of complex forms and inviting ease.
The NFC payments have become mainstream and so mobile technology is now demanding the use of remote payments. The remote payments can be done with help of an application or a cloud-based terminal like PayPal. Well, the technology is not just thought-about, it is used in fashion-shows in Japan which helps you to buy the outfits presented on the ramp in real time. Mobility technology empowers customer flexibility by allowing them to purchase anywhere and anytime.
Well, that’s not the only thing to be admired in the innovation niche, the lately launched Apple’s iPhone X has brought the human face a new form of identification. Mobile payments won’t be conducted with passwords or CVVs, the face identification will be implemented for remote payments. This emerging technology, won’t just payment transaction easy but add a level to security, diminishing the online theft.
Beacons Make Deals More Significant
With use of Bluetooth technology, beacons help you to send the details about your offer to smartphones that are in close proximity. Beacons have a unique feature of sending a push notification to a user who has the specific app installed in their phone. The retail stores are already using beacons to inform the users about jaw-dropping deals to customers when they are close to sale or notify them about the availability of missing product they thought to buy earlier.
Barcode Scanning Apps Make Shopping Easier & Quicker
Barcode scanning has reduced the dependency of sales assistant, as most the companies today have implemented barcode scanning for price-checking. This technology with a smartphone enables the user to compare the price of various products while they are shopping.
With the points mentioned above, it is definite that mobile technology will be empowering customer journey with the transformation of dark stores to technology advanced stores with AI, AR, face identification and more.
The change witnessed after a major impact of mobile technology in a brick and motor store with mobile technology:
- The Purchasing Process
- The Flexible Retail Experience
- The Brands Presence
With such dramatic growth is sure for retailers to harness the power of technology and capitalize the benefit of the opportunities.
