Industry leaders state that currently an impressive 86% of retail sales in the US take place in brick and mortar store (1). The consumer of 2019 is more technologically enabled than ever before. 53 % of these sales are digitally influenced (1). This means that the average consumer is shopping with mobile device in hand. Perhaps they are weighing-up whether the benefit of physically trying-on clothing outweighs the wait at the check-out line, or whether the product is in stock since when purchasing online the item is always in stock.

Retailers are levelling the playing-field by matching the advantages of e-commerce in a brick-and-mortar location. They are employing omnichannel solutions to meet the expectations of consumers. Check out our list of 2019 consumer expectations and see how retailers can meet them.

Well-equipped store assistance

Statistics indicate what many are already assuming, that each new generation of consumers has a lower tolerance for traditional store delays and an expectation of service similar to that experienced in the online world. Customer fears regarding stock levels, long queues before payment, even delays in answering queries influence purchase decisions more than ever before. Technologies such as Assist. by Shopi are the solutions to these concerns. Electronic endless product aisles, mobile payment technology (mPOS), slick communication between staff, even fulfilment from other stock locations, is made possible by this simple application loaded to a smart device in the hands of a store assistant.

Customer freedom

Major retailers are recognizing the advantage in providing an autonomous shopping experience for consumers. Providing the opportunity for customers to enter, browse and purchase without human interaction does have advantages and has obvious parallels to the online shopping experience. Providing access to the entire range of products on HD screens with attractive, branded, real-time data is the foundation of this. Add to this the provision of self-checkout and you have the smooth purchase experience that Gen Z are expecting. Sign. by Shopi provides all this with integration to cloud data management technologies that mean that retailers benefit from each touch and transaction customers make.

Frictionless omnichannel

The smooth consumer omnichannel experience is becoming more absolute each year. The key to providing the seamless experience that the customer expects is technology that unifies all retail technologies in a company. Middleware that is robust and communicates with other technologies will allow the retailer instant access to key data and the absolute ability to deploy this data at enterprise scale. Historically speaking, data from E-commerce, CRM and even physical stores has been siloed and managed separately. Now, however, technologies such as cloud. by Shopi unify this data and allow the retailer to centralize and deploy it. Data accrued from everything from purchases to returns are unified, regardless of the channel it was received from, providing the perfect omnichannel experience.

Unified approach

Gen Z shoppers are more interested in experiences and environments than any other generation. Key decision-makers are educated by data acquired by in-store touch points and e-commerce transactions. They are then in the best position to make top-down decisions regarding everything from store layout to the roll-out of new technology to provide these experiences.
Connect. by Shopi is a smart data and content dashboard, especially designed for marketing and business teams at decision making level. It uses data gathered by products such as sign. and cloud. to provide key insights to the behavior of both retail locations, and customer behavior. The same data is available for utilization with software’s proprietary task management functionality. This keep marketing and sales teams up-to-date and gives them the ability to direct content decisions, manage branding and communicate instantly across the company.

It’s clear that the future of retail is close cooperation between the physical and the online. Rather than resist the inevitable, embracing the technological expectations of consumers gives retailers key advantages. It allows them to consistently and accurately learn who their consumers are and how to build the most mutually beneficial relationship possible with them. The range of omnichannel solutions available at
shopihq.com/services is second to none in meeting the expectation of customers entering stores, regardless of their generation.