RETAIL 2024: NEXT-LEVEL PERSONALISATION, AI AND HARMONY

AI-driven technologies are already expanding the boundaries of immersive and interactive shopping experiences. Customers appreciate the effort, with 52% agreeing that their satisfaction increases as digital experiences with brands grow more personalised. Over three-quarters (77%) of consumers prefer brands offering personalised data-based experiences, and 75% prefer it when retailers use personal data to enhance their shopping experiences.

Retailers are strategising ways to elevate and personalise the shopping experience and journey with the following technology.

Machine Learning (ML) algorithms

Recommendation engines use behaviour and product information to offer personalised recommendations, helping connect shoppers to products and services they’ll likely enjoy. Virtual try-ons with computer vision algorithms power virtual fitting rooms and make-up try-on tools, enabling customers to experiment with items before purchasing.

Computer vision uses gesture controls to power interactive displays, mirrors and screens, offering virtual product visualisations to create an immersive, in-store experience. This technology is very popular with shoppers, with 75% saying they would use interactive screens to discover a retailer’s online product portfolio and 69% saying they love the “wow” factor they get from seeing a large video wall in-store.

Natural language processing (NLP) helps chatbots engage in conversational commerce, answering product questions, suggesting purchases and mimicking human sales assistants. ML algorithms deliver personalisation by analysing shopper data and behaviour to create a tailored shopping experience with customised navigation, product suggestions, promotions and search results.

Predictive analytics leverages algorithms to study sales data and external factors to forecast demand, helping stores optimise inventory and provide targeted promotions. Dynamic pricing also uses algorithms to adjust prices based on competing options, inventory and consumer demand; retailers use flexible pricing to strike the perfect balance.

IoT sensors

Perhaps a better question about IoT sensors is not where you can find them but where they aren’t used. This technology has found a home in many aspects of retail.

Interactive windows and displays create an immersive external experience to pique customers’ curiosity and draw them into the store. Once inside, more technology helps retailers record shopper behaviour. Pressure-sensitive floors can track in-store paths to analyse traffic patterns and engagement. Motion sensors on store shelves track customer behaviour like products touched or time spent looking at a particular area. Digital signage equipped with proximity sensors can detect approaching customers and change the current content or offers on display.

Bluetooth beacons placed throughout stores connect with smartphones to offer location-based promotions. RFID tags on items enable sensor-driven interactivity and provide data on purchasing behaviour. Interactive displays and shelves detect weight changes when an item is picked up or moved, triggering related visuals, product information or recommendations. This technology is popular among 75% of shoppers, with interactive kiosks in grocery stores encouraging nearly a quarter of shoppers to consider purchasing.

Smart mirrors with built-in sensors allow patrons to try on outfits virtually and get feedback on different styles and custom recommendations. Smart fitting rooms equipped with sensors also provide feedback on fit or style and allow shoppers to request different styles. Our study found that interactive changing rooms encourage 43% of shoppers to revisit a fashion store and prompt 30% of department store customers to consider buying.

Beacon technology

Think of beacons as lighthouses that continually transmit signals for other devices to pick up and see. But rather than a light beam, beacons broadcast radio signals (comprised of numbers and letters) at consistent, short intervals.

Retailers can place beacons around the store to detect when customers approach certain products and departments and send relevant offers and information to their smartphones to drive targeted engagement. Over 70% of customers want real-time recommendations as they browse the store.

Retail apps using beacon technology can provide on-premise navigation, pointing shoppers toward items they want — and other popular products — to make in-store shopping more immersive. Almost 75% of shoppers want to use (or already rely on) their mobile devices to help navigate stores.

Retailers can even put beacons on apparel, enabling consumers to build a virtual fitting room on their smartphone to try on items digitally. For streamlined, frictionless transactions, beacons enable secure mobile payments from smartphones without a customer needing to use the checkout line.

Some retailers gamify the shopping experience by allowing customers to ‘check in’ to departments via beacons to earn points or collect rewards, incentivising engagement. Beacons can also trigger nearby digital displays or mirrors to show product information and recommendations when someone picks up an item from a shelf. Finally, beacons collect interactions and location data, providing retailers with valuable insights into customer behaviour and enabling teams to offer more customised experiences.

These technologies enable marketing teams to tailor product recommendations, curate and deliver tailor-made shopping experiences, and obtain real-time information and insights to make adjustments that enhance customer satisfaction and maintain brand loyalty. The data backs up evolving customer expectations:

Retailers can increase revenue by over 25% when they offer individualised product recommendations. According to research from Barilliance, product recommendations account for as much as 31% of e-commerce revenue. Shoppers engaging with recommended products generate 70% higher conversion rates than those who don’t.

Disparate, decentralised systems hamper collaboration because assets are scattered throughout an organisation. If different asset versions are floating around, keeping track of the source of truth becomes difficult. Centralised content management systems (CMS) unify operations, remove silos and streamline digital content management. These platforms facilitate a more accessible aggregation of engagement data across channels to optimise content performance, too.

These platforms also offer other benefits, ensuring consistent messaging and tone across all channels and customer touchpoints to strengthen brand identity. A centralised platform facilitates seamless team collaboration, streamlining content creation and review processes. It allows for flexible publishing and updating across multiple channels, including mobile, print, social web, etc., from one CMS.

Delivering omnichannel customer experiences across devices and channels feels more cohesive when content is sourced from one platform. These platforms also include automation capabilities, including workflow automation, scheduling and personalised communication at scale. Marketers and staff benefit from accessibility; they can securely share and update content through role-based permissions granted in the CMS.

The operations budget benefits, too, with lower software, hardware and support costs since harmonising and centralising systems onto one platform eliminates the need for separate content repositories. This strategy also prepares companies for future readiness because a robust CMS simplifies the process of scaling content and adding new devices as the company grows.

Just over one-third (38%) of companies use only one CMS, but 48% use two to three CMS systems and 14% use four CMSs — or more. While monolithic CMS remains prominent, the newer headless CMS are growing in popularity because they’re more compatible with newer technology, more user-friendly, scalable, and secure. Regardless of the type of CMS companies use, transitioning to one CMS creates harmony among all systems and enables retailers to gain data-driven insights for delivering more effective personalised customer interactions.