Technology has seen a huge spike in advancement over the past 20 years, with almost every industry now utilizing tech to their advantage. Thanks to the latest developments, it’s safe to say technology has quite literally changed the way industries do business – helping to create efficiencies, providing better products and services, and, ultimately, saving businesses money. The retail sector, as you probably guessed, is no different.
It’s also seen a large influx in technological implementation over the past couple of decades, bringing the latest technology to both online and instore environments.
That being said, the following article will be a closer look at some of the latest tech used in today’s retail and how it could impact your shopping experience for 2020 and beyond.
Retail Integration
Most of us will have already noticed the major changes made in retail technology over the last 10 years or so. Gone are the days when walking around a bustling shopping centre was the only way to get your hands on the latest products.
Shoppers can now sit back, relax, and order pretty much everything they want by downloading an app on their iPad – and even that seems a stretch when you have the ability to tell your speaker what you want and it’ll order it for you!
Established brands such as Olive Tablet have even emerged to push the singular integration of tablets and iPads further within the retail environment, and it is clearly an effective tool for many retailers (no matter their relation to new-age tech).
That being said, voice integrated speakers that order your Amazon cart and smartphone apps aren’t really that new, what exactly can we expect from technology in 2020?
Well, one of the most exciting prospects for the new decade is robotic assistants. That’s right, we’re moving in the same direction as some of your favorite sci-fi movies did. The latest robot tech will be getting unveiled into a number of different stores, providing human-like abilities that can find merchandise, answer questions, and provide customer service. Exciting and kinda scary.
Something a little less Star Wars-y, however, is facial recognition. In the same way mobiles can now use your face to unlock your smartphone, stores could recognize a person’s face before they’ve stepped foot in the door. When a customer is identified by FRT (facial recognition technology), the store workers will have information to better respond to their unique needs. Whilst there are certainly legal and privacy concerns to iron out, there will be several advantages for retailers when this tech is bowled out.
It might be a little while before we see full implementation of the latest robot technology used within major retailers, but when we do, it’ll be revolutionary for both retailer and consumer.
Ultimately, there are a whole plethora of interesting technologies in the works as we speak, including; extended reality, recommendation engines, robotic order fulfilment, customer chat bots, and more.
An Immersive Consumer Experience
So, if the last couple of decades are anything to go by, it’s safe to say the next 10 years are going to be extremely interesting when it comes to technology within retail.
Customers will most likely see the arrival of new predictive analytics before the introduction of robots – a technology that allows stores to analyze data and tailor a shopping experience to that individual’s exact needs – recommending products they didn’t even realise they needed.
That being said, whilst many are still trying to get their heads around the internal workings of Alexa, there are individuals out there designing new and exciting technology which will revolutionize the way we think of retail shopping. This truly is just the beginning.
