The success of
Black Friday as the number one date in the shopping calendar is one of the
reasons we see less speculation surrounding the death of the high street than
we did in 2012 when smartphone ownership tripled. Shopping that required moving
about looked set to become a distant memory.
While we have
seen examples of some high street retailers closing their doors for good, such
as Blockbuster and Comet, bricks and mortar retailers have upped their game and
are using technology to their advantage.
This month saw
Amazon, the original nemesis of the high street, open its first-ever physical
bookstore at University Village, Seattle, after 20 years of selling online only.
So, in the age of omni-channel retail, how can retailers use the Internet of
Things (IoT) to deliver the ultimate connected shopping experience and gain an
advantage at the most competitive time of year?
Keeping things moving
When demand on
stock is at its highest, the grip over supply chains needs to be at its
tightest. Poor stock and supply chain management leads to customers being
frustrated by empty shelves and limited choice – the perfect enticement to try
an alternative outlet that can better serve their needs.
Accurate supply
chain planning relies on data-driven decision making, which is increasingly
generated by connected IoT devices. Capturing and analysing data such as the
amount of stock being produced in warehouses, the demand at each outlet, and
the time required to get product from the production line to the shelves into
one place, is invaluable for supply chain managers.
Using telematics
data collected from vehicles in the distribution fleets, logistics managers can
see where cargo is and when it will reach its destination. Furthermore, RFID-enabled
sensors on products enable advanced product tracking through every stage of the
supply chain, giving supply chain managers a micro view of the situation as
well as the big picture.
To complete the
connected supply chain, in-store IoT connects the front and back of house.
We’re all familiar with choosing a shoe from the shelf, asking the assistant if
we can try a pair for size, and waiting 10 minutes before he/she returns to say:
“We don’t have that size but we have a pair in a different size or in a colour
you didn’t ask for.”
Connected
customer experiences give the shop floor assistant a live inventory application
hosted on a smartphone or tablet, so they can tell you instantly what stock is
available and even send a message to request the correct pair is brought out
for you to try.
At the point of
sale, the live inventory is automatically updated when it receives a message
from the checkout transaction. For example, if I buy the pair of shoes, that
serial number will be deducted from the store inventory. Using this system, the
inventory of each store, as well as distribution centres for products sold
online, provides a clear picture of what products were selling best, where, and
where supply is needed to meet demand – key information for the supply chain
management team. This smarter approach to stock management helps prevent the
disappointment of ‘out of stock’ messages online or empty shelves in-store
during peak shopping periods such as Black Friday.
Smarter shops, smarter
shopping
One of the
weapons in an online retailer’s arsenal that bricks and mortar stores struggle
to compete with, is the ability to collect and use customer data to target them
with deals based on their age, gender, interests, purchasing history and time
of year.
In order to
deliver a true omni-channel experience, retailers are introducing new
technologies that were once exclusive to ecommerce, to entice high street
shoppers to their stores and improve their experience when they’ve entered
them. John Lewis (in the UK), often synonymous with great customer service, is
one retailer that has developed elegant ways of combining the offline and
online world. It’s Click and Collect experience, launched in 2008, where
customers can order any item online to be delivered to their nearest store free
of charge, has proven so popular that it was recently announced the service would
be charged for.
Location-based
mobile marketing is becoming a powerful tool for retailers. Catalogue retailer Argos’
app tells you the stock levels at the store you are planning to visit to avoid
disappointment when you get there and give you the chance to find an alternative
store or order online if stocks are depleted.
Meanwhile, BMW
Group Research and Technology is looking to combine the future connected car
with high street shopping, finding ways of allowing retailers to target drivers
with tailored offerings based on their proximity to local stores through car
computer systems.
Marrying the
offline and online retail experience, therefore, requires communications
between stock-rooms, transactions, warehouses and distribution centres and
consumers’ mobile devices, vehicles and eyeballs to be occurring all the time.
For this process
to provide the seamless interactional experience with retail brands on any
channel, at any time, particularly at the busiest time of year, the
infrastructure underpinning the IoT, Wi-Fi and mobile messaging ecosystem needs
to match the intelligence and sophistication of the systems involved.
This article is written by Mr. David Eden , Head of NextGen Innovation, Tata Communications.
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