Emerging technologies that are revolutionizing the omnichannel retailing-Part 3

In my last two blogs, I talked about the benefits of switching to an omnichannel route and how to strategize it in the most efficient way. In this blog, I want to shed some light on the most important aspect of Omnichannel Strategy which practically enables it to be successful. And that aspect is nothing other than the technological aspect of strategy because we can’t deny the fact that it’s the latest technology that inspired the birth of the concept of Omnichannel Retailing.

In this blog, we will talk about Emerging technologies that can help shape up your Omnichannel retailing strategy and make it “magical”

Contactless Checkout

Contactless checkout is a set of software and hardware technologies, like smart cameras, shelf sensors, and AI, that allow in-store shoppers to grab products, walk out, and be charged automatically, without interacting with cashiers.

You should definitely give a thought to incorporating this technology in your omnichannel business because over 87% of shoppers say that they prefer to shop in stores with touchless or robust self-checkout options.

An India-based supermarket chain, HyperCity was the first South Asian company to use this technology in 2017. Then in 2018, Watasale, India’s first autonomous retail store, inspired by Amazon-Go, offered shoppers a unique ‘checkout-free’ experience using a combination of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, sensor fusion, and computer vision.

In both these stores, the customer just needs to download an app and register using an email ID and phone number. The app generates a QR code that serves as a unique identity and a ‘ticket’ to the store. They can walk in, pick products, and leave the store by scanning the QR code at the entrance.

Benefits of Contactless Checkout:

Saves Time: The consumers can grab what they need and leave the store in less than 30 seconds. These store formats are handy for working moms and professionals.

No queues: No more U-turns by customers on seeing queues at the billing counter of a retail store. The technology puts an end to the queue system for billing your products.

Go Cashless: Consumers don’t need to carry cash for shopping transactions as they can conveniently use electronic wallets for transactions.

Shopping experience: Enhances shopping experience, making it safer, faster, and more comfortable for the consumers.

Enhanced Operational efficiency: Contactless technology requires fewer employees and enables faster implementation. Businesses accepting contactless payments save time by eliminating the need to count currencies and operate card swiping machines. This enables sales to be closed in record time.

Augmented Reality

According to important research, 61% of customers prefer retailers with AR experiences, and 32% use AR while shopping.

Augmented Reality is an easy, exciting, and interactive way to try any product digitally before buying it. The technology drastically minimizes return rates for online retailers by providing an appealing ‘try-before-you-buy’ digital experience.

Thanks to innovative Augmented Reality (AR) technology, customers can now visualize, walk and enjoy an immersive shopping experience of a retail store in real-time from the comfort of their homes.

Keeping with the recent trend, it’s important for a retailer to unite physical stores and digital shopping with AR technologies like Virtual Try-On and Virtual Dressing Rooms.

For example, when I was in Lenskart, we were one of the early adopters of AR technology. We partnered with Ditto to offer a 3D Virtual Try-On solution that captures a precise map of each customer’s face and their personal style preferences to help them choose the frame which suits their face the best.

Another example of Augmented Reality for Omnichannel retailing is Virtual Dressing Room.

In Virtual Dressing Rooms, shoppers can virtually try on clothing items or beauty products without physically touching the item itself.

You might think this technology might be hard to build from scratch but what if you don’t need to build it from scratch?

And that’s actually the case. There are providers like Ditto, Virtual try, Virtooal, Banuba, that provide sophisticated, affordable, and scalable AR solutions that can be integrated and customized for your needs. And I can say that from my own experience with Lenskart’s 3D Virtual Try-Onsolution.

Benefits of Augmented Reality in retail:

Eliminates geographical barriers: Creates a rich virtual experience for brand stores that customers can access from anywhere in the world.

Boost Customer engagement: Presents engaging and visually appealing personalized product demos and makes online shopping experiential. It also makes product discovery easy by showing products that fit and are visually appealing to the customers. Studies suggest that 70% of people are expected to be more loyal to brands incorporating AR as their shopping experience.

Reduces infrastructure costs: Helps e-Commerce businesses to leverage the benefits of the physical store without a proper setup, thereby saving substantial infrastructure costs.

Improves sales and operational efficiency: Helps B2B salespeople sell more efficiently by reducing the need to move bulky products, sales materials, and other content.

Stands out in the market: Offering an AI-enabled experience helps firms to stand out in a crowded market and popularize a brand.

Improves conversion: Helps consumers decide which products to buy by making them more confident that what they are buying fits them and suits their look. This significantly improves conversion. According to 2020 research by Vertebrae, conversion rates increased by 90% for customers engaging with AR versus those that don’t. And in some categories like eyewear, there was a  lift of 200% to 500% in conversions. Engaging with AR also leads to higher purchase frequency and higher average order value (AOV)

Reduces Item returns: Returns will be a Trillion dollar problem as e-commerce grows. While 5-10% of in-store purchases are returned, this increases to 15 to 40% for online purchases with categories like Apparel, Shoes, Eyewear having return rates of 30-40%. AR helps customers pick out items that fit and suit them the most and drastically reduces the return rate resulting in huge savings for retailers and brands. Shopify saw a 40% reduction in return rates with the use of AR while Perfitly found an average 64% reduction in return rates.

Digital Payments

Digital payments have revolutionized the means of buying and blessed both retailers and consumers with ease, safety, and convenience. No need for ‘change’ has been a big change!

Digital payments provide the flexibility to adapt Omnichannel Strategy easily by doing seamless payments on any channel whether it is an online storefront or a physical store.

UPI options like Google Pay, Paytm are big examples of digital payments trending in the retail business.

Benefits of digital payments:

For customers:

Convenience: Consumers do not need to carry cash when shopping online or offline. Digital payments provide them complete control over transactions regardless of the channel used for shopping.

For businesses:

Reduces hassle: Businesses are relieved of the responsibility of counting the notes, returning the change, and depositing the cash in the bank account. Additionally, it protects them against the threats of counterfeit notes.

Customer Data Platform

Managing customer data is one of the biggest challenges retailers face in Omnichannel Retailing. If you’re looking to effectively manage your customer data, a customer data platform may be the solution for you.

This new technology for improving and optimizing work consists of a platform designed to solve the problems of integration, labeling, and storage of customer data. In this way, we can have a unified vision of all your interactions in the customer data platform and thus have more information to develop and execute our strategies.

They provide a unique view of the customer. Customer data platforms are specifically designed to collect data from a wide variety of sources, unify them in a complete view of the client in all devices and channels and then make them available to other systems.

They allow companies to be more competitive: The transparency provided by these platforms makes it possible for your team to react more quickly to changes in markets or customer preferences.

They are agile: CDPs give businesses the tools they need to collect data from everywhere and use it anywhere to create better customer experiences.

Democratizes data: The benefits of customer data platforms are not exclusive to the marketing team, but it also encompasses other departments of the company.

Enriches relationships with partners and suppliers: The extended ecosystems of the companies, including suppliers and partners, are among the first beneficiaries of the implementation of a Customer Data Platform.

Improve operational efficiency:CDPs centralize customer data with ready-to-use integrations, which saves many working hours.

Other than these technologies, I talked about 2 other technologies i.e. Chatbots and Headless Commerce in my previous blog.

And, believe it or not, these technologies are rapidly evolving to make the customer’s experience even more immersive and convenient. Alibaba has been a pioneer in converging digital with offline retail and bringing technologies that are defining the future of retail through their supermarket chain called Hema. For eg. The Cashierless Checkout app by Hemais not just about payment but also provides details about the product which consumers would definitely like to know i.e. How fresh it is? Is it grown organically? etc.

Also, their Digital Payment technology includes an option of Facial recognition. The Hema stores also double as fulfillment centres for Hema’s online grocery orders.

I am sure you might be thinking that these technologies at Hemamight be very “advanced” for India but interestingly some brands are already working on making them feasible in India.

So now after reading all three blogs I wrote, I think you can answer these three most important questions about Omnichannel retailing.

1. Why should you switch to Omnichannel Retailing?
2. How should you build an Omnichannel Retailing strategy?
3. What technologies should you incorporate in your Omnichannel Retailing strategy?

Go ahead, make the move to Omnichannel Retailingnow!