IoT in Retail Enriches In-store Customer Experiences for Brick & Morter

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Businesses are experiencing a paradigm shift the way they do business and interact with customers by harnessing the potential of emerging technologies. Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the powerful technologies that connect different machines, devices, and objects in order to create a smart world around. IoT helps every industry either by streamlining and automating day-to-day operations or delivering better experiences to the outer world or serving both the purpose.

When it comes to retail, IoT helps brick and mortar increase customer engagement with the store and improve efficiency of supply chain and inventory.

77% of retailers are strongly convinced that IoT platforms and solutions can greatly improve customer experience. 89% of those already using IoT solutions feel they have seen improved customer preferences insights. – Verizon

Let’s have a deep dive into how IoT retail solutions open up the doors of new business opportunities through the network of connected devices.

Rearrange Your Store Layout

Retailers can collect and analyze the data about customers’ digital journey with their brands to understand their behavior and preferences. With IoT enabled smart cameras and sensors, retailers can track customers’ journey in the store.

The data enable retailers with insights of which products are popular amongst customers and which are not. It helps them to re-arrange their store by presenting the most popular items in the front row. It becomes easy for shoppers to make quick buying decisions and enhance their shopping experience too.

Improved Customer Experience

Enable shoppers with the customized in-store visit by tracking their online journey with your products. Leveraging the micro-location technology and advanced retail mobility solutions, you can get insights about what the customer was recently browsing online. The data helps your store staff provide more options and suitable suggestions about the variety available in the same product category while shopper visits the store.

For example; a buyer is looking for sunglasses of a specific brand in online marketplace. When he/she visits the store to shop the sunglasses the retailer can enable him with more options in the same brand, price range, and product category.

No Checkouts Lines Anymore!

During the peak shopping hours, long queue at billing counters is one of the key pain points for customers as well as store owners. Your billing counter executives have to track the number of products, create a bill, and accept the card or cash. The process is more time consuming and less cost-effective.

With the help of IoT, retailers can set up a system that reads the tags of the items when customers leave the store. The checkout system counts the number of products and its pricing and deducts the amount from the mobile payment app of the customer. No more lines for checkouts, no more cash counters, no resources required for billing and payment collection.

Offer Personalized Discounts

Enable your repeat buyers with the customized discounts as their loyalty reward. Create a customer loyalty program and encourage them to participate in it to get personalized offers. Set up IoT sensors around your store and send discounts offers to the loyal buyers in their smartphones when they stand near the products.

Moreover, IoT helps retailers track the items customers have been looking online. Provide them the personalized discount on the same product. Tailored discounts are more powerful than the general discounts as they increase the conversion rates.

Increase Store Visits with Beacon technology

Connecting IoT with beacon technology, retailers can increase the footfalls in the store by sending notifications and alerts to customers’ smartphone based on the location proximity. When customers come near your store, they start receiving the personalized discount, offers, special events, advertising, and other reminders through the stores’ mobile app. Beacon triggered content engages customers more and increases their likelihood to purchase in-store.

Efficient Supply Chain Management

Leverage GPS and RFID sensors to track your consignments in real-time and get the update in your smartphone. With IoT enabled sensors, retailers can track at which temperature the product is stored, how much time the transit will take, the recent location of the transit, and much more. The advanced data help retailers make their transportation facility more efficient by maintaining the product quality for a long time and avoiding substantial loss.

Make Smart Inventory Decisions

IoT based shelves help you track the real-time the status of the product quantity on each of the shelves. It helps your staff to refill the empty space on the shelves immediately with the required product. Moreover, retailers can make a decision about restocking the particular products and make sure that they never run out of stock.

Credencys helps retailers to get all the insights about their retail store on the go. We build retail mobility solutions where we connect your IoT hardware and other solutions with a mobile app to enable you with the complete view of your retail business. we help retailers to fill the gap between physical and digital shopping experiences, improve customer engagement and improve the performance of the store. Let’s work together to build your next IoT retail solution that helps you gain competitive edge.

Kapil Rawal
Kapil Rawal is the Industry Marketing Specialist at Credencys, An avid reader and technology enthusiast, he likes to imagine how startups will build the future of publishing. He's an expert in inbound marketing, content marketing, and lead generation. Follow him on Twitter at @kmrawal.

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