CIO opinion
Using technology to
move beyond price
and merchandise
G
areth Hawkey, Group CEO at
redPanda Software, says that retailers
need to create a compelling reason
for customers to enter their stores and should
look at technology to differentiate themselves
from the competition.
“For the past two decades, retailers have
tended to focus on saving costs and creating
efficiencies,” said Hawkey.
“This has led to an introspective
organisation. There now needs to be a
shift in mindset to focus on the customer,
to create a reason for them to enter
physical stores.”
Making the customer the focal point of the
business, and working from this mindset,
technology can have a massive impact to
change in-store customer experience.
Traditional retailers cannot compete with
online retailers when it comes to price and
merchandise and need to bring something
to the table that online retailers cannot. The
biggest opportunity is the direct interaction
with the customer – the true physical
touchpoints with consumers.
Traditional retailers must therefore find
technology that will change the whole in-
store experience to attract customers.
“The technologies that can be most
impactful to retailers include radio-frequency
identification (RFID), Bluetooth beacons,
mobile payment options, loyalty applications
and facial recognition,” said Hawkey.
Bluetooth beacons allow retailers to
broadcast a personalised message when a
user approaches a certain aisle or section of
the store.
Ultimately, this technology enables retailers
to engage with their customers in a hyper-
personalised manner while they are in
physical proximity – offering customised
deals, discounts and even coupons to build
brand loyalty.
For retailers, it is critical to offer mobile
payment options to their clients, which
enables seamless mobile point of sale (POS)
options and to provide incentives to customers
via discounts, coupons and value-added
pricing that can be accessed via digital wallets.
“The most valuable technology retailers can
utilise is facial recognition,” added Hawkey.
“This can benefit both the internal
workings of the organisation (through
monitoring attendance) but also the
customers, as the technology can alert the
staff when queues are getting too long.
This helps the retailer to deploy staff to
tills, to improve customer experience.
“Advancements in this technology now
means that retailers can predict when
customers will move towards the POS, five to
ten minutes before they do so.
“Managers can be alerted and more tills can
be opened in time to assist with checkouts,
before a backlog of waiting customers is
created. The biggest benefit to investing in
these tools and technologies is the survival
of the business.
“It also makes the ecosystem more
complicated. It adds cost to their bottom
line but this investment and change in focus
to improving the customer experience will
create a compelling reason for customers
to enter your store. That is going to be the
result of the investment.” n
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