Organizations can automatically monitor inventory in stores and send notifications when an item is running low. This results in significant savings in both time and money.
Generating business results, enhancing customer experience
IoT is not just about sensors, connectivity and data — it’s about business results, such as generating growth through new revenue streams or new business models. And all this is possible by enhancing the customer experience, for which IoT technologies offer a multitude of opportunities within the retail sector.
For example, IoT can provide valuable insights to improve the in-store customer experience. In-store sensors, which collect data on location and shopper-journey tracking, allow retailers to have real-time consumer behavior analysis. Apart from demographics, this analysis can provide data on frequency and duration of store visits, shoppers’ paths through the store, time spent in particular zones, and analysis of queue lengths and waiting times. As a result, the combination of various data sources enables generation of actionable insights, valid answers, and required and measurable KPIs.
IoT can also add value through the use of smart devices that enhance the actual shopping experience. The key to this is figuring out how to use this technology to add value. Organizations need to ask themselves, “How can we help the consumer save time, stress or money?”
Apart from demographics, analysis can provide data on frequency and duration of store visits, shoppers’ paths through the store, time spent in particular zones, and analysis of queue lengths and waiting times.
Online retailers are leading the field when it comes to developing innovative solutions to make the customer experience quicker and simpler. For example, ideas such as Wi-Fi-connected devices that enable the reordering of a customer’s favorite products simply by pushing a button.
In conclusion, IoT will continue to disrupt the traditional retail process over the coming years. Organizations that wish to remain competitive must develop a sense of urgency and proactively begin their journey by focusing on developing their customer experience capabilities and by testing and experimenting with IoT technologies.
Summary
Retailers that wish to remain competitive must take the initiative to experiment with the Internet of Things so that they can develop their customer-experience capabilities.
