How Technology Will Revolutionize Your Retail Experience

Emerging technology has driven revolutionary innovation across all industries. The retail sector has especially experimented with tech innovations and figured out how they can be used to improve the shopping experience, which changed the whole way of enjoying retail shopping. How will technology transform the retail experience? 

• Visualization technology merges the digital world with the physical world through experiences such as virtual display. Such technology is being used to generate holographic images for product display or sale, giving customers a 360 degree view of their products without showing the actual physical object.

• Beacons, which is primarily used to notify customers about coupons and discounts when coming into a store, is now becoming a tool to provide marketing solutions and in-store analytics for retailers. When entering a store, shoppers can easily know where the item they want is located by downloading the store app, opting into beacons, and waiting for the beacons to broadcast signals to their smart device. Also with beacon technology, merchants can improve the shopping experience of customers. For example, beacons can alert sale associates the moment a customer walks into the store and it also can share the customer’s shopping list through Bluetooth for the sales to give more informed recommendations.

• Wearable gadgets, such as smart watches, fitness trackers, and smart glasses, can glean powerful insights into customers, for example, Google Glass, Apple watch, or iFit. Brands can have access to customer data by implementing predictive analytics tools into wearable products. Fitness monitors, for example, can notify a retailer that the customer is in need of new running shoes. Next time when shopping in-store or online, the retailer can provide the customer personalized product suggestions. Other possible applications, such as pay with watch and 3D viewing digital eyewear. 

Technology is gradually becoming an everyday retail reality. Other than the technologies covered above, there are plenty of other opportunities for new technologies to become widely used in this sector such as 3D printing, POS technology, mobile e-commerce, and biometrics. Do you see technology catching on retailing shopping? Share your comments below or talk to us on Facebook and Twitter @hplustech.

- Bella Du, Administrative Assistant