Stores open wide to technology
The stores of the future are here to stay. In an interconnected world and in a time in which technology invades more and more areas of our lives, making it more comfortable, retailers, both large and small, must get on the innovation bandwagon to be able to face the increasingly most growing online business. However, as stated by the head of consumer and retail products at Capgemini Invent, Eloy de Sola, the physical store will continue to be the preferred channel for Spaniards, as long as customers do not lose the advantages that purchasing offers. on-line. This is where technology and, above all, Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into play. «We have done studies on what is going to happen after the pandemic, and the consumer does not want to lose the advantages that the digital world has given them, so AI is going to be a facilitator to unite the two worlds, online and offline. physical," explains this expert.
This change had already begun, but has accelerated significantly in the last year. In 2016, according to De Sola, only 4% of retailers were betting on AI initiatives, while in 2020 this percentage rose to above 50%. The pandemic, according to the CEO of BitPhy, Joan Oller, has intensified a process that has to culminate in a balance of the physical and online store. Even so, he is convinced that with these new stores "the physical sector is going to increase a lot" since AI can be of great help for those businesses that lack online sales.
Know the client
So that companies can get the most out of these technologies, the business development director of AIS Group, Agustí Amorós, sees it as essential to know both the type of customer they want in their establishment and the one who is entering. All of this with the aim of improving the user experience both in the facility itself and in the treatment that can be given to them. For this reason, the offering of physical stores in the future will be "more personalized" and, in addition, will seek to ensure that the user has a "very relevant" experience at that point of sale.
These technologies, apart from helping to improve customer purchases, benefit the company in that they gain productivity and effectiveness. They work on this from Pay Mark Fast, a Spanish startup that offers its clients, among other things, the possibility of recording which products the user tries on and which one they end up purchasing. "We detected important information which is to know if the product is not sold due to a size problem or a design problem since if people do not try it on it is because the design fails," says the company's CEO, Ismael Humbrías. .
Although installing these technologies may involve a large initial investment, the truth is that it ultimately returns in benefits. Thus, according to De Sola, retailers have reported an 11% increase in sales in automated physical stores compared to non-automated or low-level stores. Furthermore, automated ones reduce costs by 9%. This is because the technology, as Humbrías declares, allows for "very exhaustive control" of stocks to see with AI what is selling best: "We play with selling much more by reducing the stock," he explains.
Selling more is also achieved by facilitating the purchasing process for the customer. This is what Clon Digital intends, another Spanish company that emerged in February 2020 and that allows the user to convert the store's products into Augmented Reality through a link that they receive on their mobile phone without having to download any application, explains its founder, Javier Cabañero: «The objective is for the products to reach customers and for them to be able to see how they would look, if it is decorative furniture, in the space in which they want to place it, regardless of whether they are in Japan or Spain".
