To begin with, let’s star…
What is digital transformation?
It is a use of technology to improve the performance or reach radically. Integrating digital technologies in all the areas of business results in fundamental changes in operating and delivering value to the customers. The goal of digital transformation is to provide better experience for…
- customers,
- employees,
- partners,
- and suppliers while improving the operational efficiency and reducing the cost.
What is the importance of digital transformation in retail sector?
We all know we won’t go back to the conventional way of selling the product anytime soon. It is true that COVID-19 and its variants have impacted hugely on retail sector for more than three years now.
Through the pandemic, business activities in retail sector have been mandated to opt digital transformation without in which it is called incompetent and irrelevant or uninteresting, which is a threat to a retail sector.
Through this, customer habits of spending and making purchases have been changed. Retailers must also understand their supply chains. Many of the retailers have had problems in meeting customer demand because they could not predict it. A better understanding of inventory is necessary for retailers to plan their online and offline customer services.
Digital savvy companies will prosper, although many of the retailers know that they are not still adopting the latest technologies that would allow them to provide seamless experience to customers, the retail businesses that who have opted digital technology are ahead of the curve. When customers cannot leave the house and spend only on essential digital channels help businesses to remain productive and gain good share market, for example, Walmart.
And the customer loyalty is dependent on brand. So if the brands are good, customers are satisfied, then they always return back. The few things that the customers wouldn’t like is waiting in the line, social distancing, hygiene, and preventive measures.
Through digital transformation, retailers can provide better services while taking care of their safety as well.
Type of the retail business
The reality of retail business types are ever going, but some main examples include department stores, which usually have a wide selection of products and offer from hardware to children’s toys.
The other one is online stores which involve the sharing of goods by electronic means including on mobile device or computers. Convenience store, this is a store stock, all of the customers, everything essential from milk to biscuits and supermarkets.
Our large marketplace that is a large variety of products focused on food and household objects and specialty stores. These stores focus on offering customers a specific product type or a category that it especially is in.
The effect of digital transformation are real industry
Digital transformation is enhancing from I’ve mended reality and enhanced customer experience to greater pressures and control over marketing data and inventory management.Organizations across industry enjoy the benefits of digital transformation.
It’s enabled business to modernize legacy processes, accelerate efficient workflows, and increase profitability.
Employing new technology is the best way to stay current and keep up with digital demand.
In this presentation, we put together a list of three top retail digital transformation example.
- The first one is Rebecca Mankoff. One of the digital, actually retail digital transformation, transcropping up recently is Radio Frequently Identification, RFID, which this company installed responsive touch-screen mirrors in fitting room. The mirror read RFID tags and products and such as related items.
- The other one is Zephra, which uses facial scanning technology and its virtual artists app. This app uses facial, actually a scanning technology to help user find the right makeup shades.
- And the last one is IKEA, leverage AR4 at home virtual product stores. You sit on your sofa at your home, open the app, take a photo from a part of house and decorate it with virtual furniture and shop your ideal furniture without going out to store.
Case study-walmart
Everyone is familiar with walmart ,but do you aware of how they function digitally and which sector they cover?So as you can see out here mostly after the lockdown,walmart has come ahead with like the purpose of online orders in which you can like order online and you can get access to a variety of products which and you do not have to go to the store.
you can be at your convenience at your home watching searching for it on your phones and stuff plus their online system which helps them to like go through the inventory and what inventory is needed to be ordered what needs to be going to the system it’s all done online these days plus they can easily trace all the products which is in the store by like the cameras and stuff which takes photos like two three times and then they have tracing of whatever products is outside what’s inside and of course variety of options for them to like use like delivery apps or maybe other websites which can help them get availability of all the products inside and of course recording the inventory daily which is a very important part because they need to know what product is there, what’s not there or what is missing right now just because of shoplifters.
What the walmart is doing for their customer?
I already like should discuss about what the walmart is doing for their customer but the government is just doing for the customer they are also using the digital methods for the employees too like the focals.The focals are like a CCTV cameras, they’re clicking the pictures three times a day for the empty shelves, that things need to be out from the back room and don’t have on the sales floor there in the back room.
So they used to do scanning manually each and every item. So that’s taking a lot of time, but nowadays they just used to, it’s becoming with the focus. so if they’re clicking the picture and tell them which is not there that needs to be out here.
New features
Yeah they have new features like section work before that they were used to do like with particular section which is not organized that everything is messy there and and missing prices, missing products, but nowadays they have the pinpoint feature, which is already telling them which is not there and which is not at the correct location, which is without price, label each and everything they’re telling.
So they just need to go to the location and just click. If they have the item, they can just scan the item. If they don’t, they can just directly order.
Moreover, e-labels, before that they used to do daily early in the morning before opening the store they used to print all the labels and go to the particular department and item to item to change the prices every day before entering the customers but now they have the online system they have just scanners they can activate the prices according to departments and that’s one click and price are automatically changed by e-labels reduce the manual power like they’re using to scan each and every item they will automatically scan and tell them which things need to be out.That’s all and now maybe Harinder can continue.
Digital transformations in future
The digital transformations that are on our way in the future in 2013 or beyond years.
- The first one is the advanced analytics software powered by artificial intelligence. This will help the retail sector when, for example, there is some promotion that’s coming up. It will calculate all of the downstream impacts of the promotion and optimize the inventory for gross margins and this will also reduce the total inventories and maximize the sales and reduce the markdowns.
- Next one is the walkout shopping, eliminating the need to stop at the register. This will be achieved with the help of the smartphone applications and RFID tags and the computer vision technologies, which will allow the customer to pick up a product and just walk out of the store without stopping at the register or the self-checkouts.
- Third one is the robot assistance for answering product-related questions and cutting down the time to find an associate. And this instead of the salesperson finding the salesperson or the associate to answer our questions to a particular product or where the product is placed or what’s the price for that.
We will just take the assistance of the robot. We will just particularly put the command to the robot and that will answer whatever question we want the answer to. And the fourth one is the predictive analytic solutions of Tecma Indra and Rettland company. These both companies have joined together to come up with a unified common analytic platform to help enterprises unlock significant value in end-to-end planning, 12% annually.
What is the future of digital transformation in retail store?
Well, the digital technologies are likely to have big impact in the future of retail store,
- like e-commerce platforms: It’s led to people to buy things online and to have them send to their homes as becoming more and more popular in the retail industry and it’s like to keep going. E-commerce sales are expected to grow faster even at sales at the traditional stores. The use of technology as well as the use of technologies, like beacons and sensors, which can be used to give customers personalize and location based on information and offers. More example, we can say the use of AI and machine learning is likely to have a big impact on the retail industry. In the future, it can be used to do things like recommend products, create the track of inventory, and help with the customer service. Retailers could, for example, use AI-powered chatbots to help customers choose products or use machine learning algorithms to predict which products will be popular and change their stock accordingly.
Like a, let’s say we can say a self-checkout customer in retail store, point that customers can scan and pay for their own purchase without any need of help or assistance.
- Another thing is social media platforms: Social media platforms are being used in the past and and it’s getting used more and more for selling, which is another thing that could change the future of retail. Many stores are already using the social media like Facebook, Instagram, to talk to the customers and sell their goods. as social medias keep changing, retailers are likely to find new creative ways to use it as a sales channel. And then lastly, the use of contactless payments are increasing and mobile devices make purchases will also affect the future of retail industry.
It’s this, this includes like paying with the mobile wallets, and Apple Pay and Google Walletuses, which is now ongoing, as well as with the QR code and near field communication technology. This trend is likely to keep going and the stores will change with times to meet the customer needs.
- And finally, the success of retail business depends on how soon you can deliver, how quickly you can gather insight from data, and how accurately you can predict the customer’s behavior: This is why it’s crucial to have a solid digital transformation strategy. And no doubt that the retail industry will become increasingly influenced by the digital transformation in the near future. And a retailer as a must be prepared to open for the right technology. Now we are open for questions. Thank you.
