Just like the adoption of technology by various companies in the medical sector, the retail sector is also taking advantage of the technological advancement. This is due to the fact that the retail technology trends drive a large number of consumers’ purchases. Undoubtedly, this is something challenging for the industry as things in the retail sector are both complicated and dynamic. With the rising technology and growing changes, the way of doing business in the retail sector has changed as it has helped in creating efficiencies, cutting down cost, and offering much better products and services. This blog will teach you 5 Retail Technology Trends to watch in 2020.
Below are top 5 retail technology trends that may surprise you by bringing transformation in the way people do shopping;
- Artificial intelligence
With the adoption of the artificial intelligence technology and being a part of the growing trend in the retail sector, it has been observed that a lot of cost have been saved especially when opted for the supply chain. It not only serves to increase the level of efficiency, it also helps identify mistakes and makes one deal with them, especially when delivering the predictive logistics or when it comes to warehouse robotics controls or with visual-aided picking. Along with route optimization, the technology also assist in fulfilling the orders depending on the client and the inventory locations. Optimizing the pickup routes and considering a large number of combinations that allows the shipment at that very time.
- Face recognition
A large number of successful retail stores across the globe ensure that they have both the online and offline presence. Being one of the retail technology, it assist the retailers in shoplifting as well as in retail crime. Thereby, improving the customized shopping experience. For instance, when a customer demand something and goes through the facial recognition technology for satisfying the process of identification, the staff in the store can deal better. Overall, retailers can ensure their security and of course the privacy concerns.
- Automation for order fulfillment
With every year passing by, it has been forecasted that over 580k robots will be employed by warehouses to assist in fulfilling customer orders. A large number of retailers are scrambling to make adjustment, further increasing the flexibility of the operations and the speed in which they are done while exploring the automation for the order fulfillment. Hence, reducing the time for the processing of the order.
“Automated systems appear to be an attractive choice for the warehouses who have been continuously struggling to keep the human labor motivated for work so that market demands could be met”
- Automated chat bots
Since retailers do have an online presence as well, majority of the customers ask for any query online. This is why, retailers wish to be present to them at all time. Hiring a human for the task may demand the need for 2 person as this would be a shift-based job, but having it automated will eliminate the need for human. Having the bots can help the retailers to bring improvement in the customer service channel that reduces the calling volume from customers’ side. Retailers who are to bring improvement in the pre-sales and post-sales service of the customers opts artificial intelligence bots as these will assist the customers even in the absence of human intervention.
- Efficient management of stock
One of the challenges that retail businesses have is also the stock management. When the warehouses are automated, they serve to improve the controls within the inventory. For the retail businesses, it is much better to go with computerized setup rather than planning to manage the inventory manually, especially when looking forward to have this accurate data. Hence, resulting in better inventory management and reduction in the rate of wastage, spoilage and theft.
What are other 5 retail trends you’ve come across? Want to share with us? Do so in the comment section as below!