Digitize or Diminish Challenge for Retailers

Retail Stores of 2020 have Neo-challenges in the globalized village and tightly woven electronic world. The age-old belief of Quality-Goods alone enhances Return On Investment of the organization has become a myth. A paradigm shift from Product-Centric models to Customer-Data Centric model has more relevance today. In this pretext, a recent post by Nikki Baird, Vice President of a Retail Innovation organization raises an important question: “Why should Retail-Stores digitize?” This post answers the question through 3 important focal points:

1. The need for digitization of Retail Stores
2. The benefits of digitization
3. The dangers of ignoring digitization

Services Vs Physical Products

Though Indian Service Industries like Banking and Transport have undergone swift digitization; A contrary situation exists in Retail sectors handling Physical goods (like apparels or electronics). They are yet to realize the importance of digitization. Whereas Online players are investing hugely on innovative technologies and thus developing Insight-Driven sales the In-store players have to shift from the ‘Product-Driven’ mindset to ‘Data-Driven’ methods. With this context let us delve into advantages data-driven methods provide to face the Digitize or Diminish challenge.

Unified-Data driven future

‘Data’ is the most valuable resource in every business arena and Retail is no exception to it. In the current world ‘Data’ is the sunlight that nourishes the growth of all domains. In the present context, capturing Customer, Products and Location-related data has gained tremendous significance. So the retail-stores have to capture minutest of customer behaviors like mannerisms exhibited on adding a product to the cart, facial expressions noticed while looking at price-tags, nod, frustration, and smiles on their faces, etc.! thus each of these observations has the potential to transform into useful data. In a nutshell, discarding Supply-chain theory and embracing Digital-Value-Chain is the future In-stores work towards.

Customer-Centric Approach, Not Product-Centric

All these days Retail-houses operated with a Product-Centric process but now the focus should change towards improving Return On Investment by Customer-Centric approach rather than Product-Centric one. This can be best explained with the analogy of Walmart Vs Amazon competition. While Walmart gave exaggerated importance to the efficiency of process/products, Amazon focused on reinventing low price Web-Service business! Having said this many retailers still do not accept digitization due to the following factors:

• Reluctance to bring in radical changes in organizational structure
• Their inability to identify data in a unified manner
• The habit of clinging on to age-old corporate myths

So to face this Digitize or Diminish challenge In-store retailers can look at promising solutions offered by Aidio, An Original Equipment Manufacturer with expertise in this arena.

All in One Interactive Displays: Technology-Enabled & Data-Unification Support

The Aidio All in One (A.I.O) Interactive Displays aptly addresses the need for In-Store Digitization. Also A.I.O is a versatile Aidio product with a robust motherboard and capacitive touch screen supporting a wide array of interactive applications. Its salient features are:

• Auto-boot-up feature supporting Apps and also Web-application lockable facility
• Provide a variety of interface devices can be plugged in namely Camera, NFC, RFID, Cash-Acceptor, Printer, Proximity, GPS, etc
• Also comes with Multiple mounting options and pre-installed applications

In this context, A.I.O can work in tandem with the Aidio-ICX suite to address the Data–Unification needs and Insights–Gathering needs. thus these Aidio products can gear up the In-Store Brands to provide ‘Human Touch’ plus technology-driven experience.

“Publish or Perish” is an old adage amongst the research community. whereas Today for Retail-In-Stores “Digitize or Diminish” aptly suits.

For Details of Aidio-ICX Suite refer: https://www.aidio.in/all-in-one-interactive-displays/

Readers can know more about: Retail Digitization here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nikkibaird/2018/03/13/what-digital-transformation-actually-means-for-retail/#7004e3877038