MAKING A CASE FOR IN-STORE TECH

This week Smartzer was happy to attend Tech London Advocates (TLA) Retail's “Making the Case for In-Store Tech” hosted at Accenture, here in London.

E-commerce has definitely changed the face of brick-and-mortar retailing. Most high street brands have invested heavily in online but haven’t put much effort into digitalizing the in-store experience. According to Accenture, better in-store technology is topping the request list of store managers, so there is definitely a case for making this a priority.

Accenture’s Cande Cooper and Rob Barnes began with the presentation ‘Retail with Purpose’ and discussed how all retailers are striving to provide their customers a superior experience. What used to work in the past, doesn’t work anymore. People want an expert in what they are looking to buy and are willing to pay for the experience, because in this fast-paced world it is important to make the moments matter.

People now have liquid expectations when it comes to experience expectations. We all wonder why every service or transaction we encounter cannot be as convenient and accommodating as Uber. Amazon is setting this trend and heavily influencing customer experience expectations.

Other customer expectations we’ve come to expect from all services are curation, customization and transparency. Curation means customers want to trust a system that knows our preferences and can recommend products and services that interest us. Platform algorithms for Airbnb and Amazon are leading curation. The services and products are expected to be customized for the consumer, who also wants to know where and how they their products were sourced. In order to stay at the forefront of the consumer’s mind you need to fulfil one or all of these expectations.

In order to build trust with your target consumer groups, companies need to consider their purpose and reason for being. A company can measure their purpose via the love index and consumer validation. A company’s purpose should be fresh, relevant, engaging and helpful. Most importantly, the purpose needs to be authentic.

Smartzer’s purpose is to make shoppable and interactive video that creates a seamless and spectacular user experience that better connects the consumer to the campaign and builds a relationship with the brand. Smartzer also provides clients with valuable analytics on video interactions, which is extremely helpful to retailers and brands.

Barnes touched on the future of purchase and how we should all be ready for big changes when it comes to purchasing. Our current method of cash checkouts at the front of the store manned by employees hasn’t changed much since the 1950s. As the most recent POS systems are ready for retirement, retailers are looking for the solutions they will use the for the next 15-20 years. Top of their list are harmonising payments across channels for an easy customer experience. They also need to look at how these payment systems work with their purpose and message of their brand.

The panel discussion that followed with Steve Carpenter, HR Director of Krispy Kreme and Jenna Gonzales Customer Success Manager of Yapster was even more enlightening. It touched on the potential use of blockchain in the entire system, as well as setbacks of trying to implement AGILE into some of their processes.

The evening brought to light many new ideas of use cases for Smartzer’s interactive videos and shoppable videos in retail and where our shoppable video and interactive video technology can fit into storetech. We have been working with multiple retailers lately and we are excited to launch another in-store experience in the very near future.

#Startup #ShoppableVideo #InStoreTechnology #RetailTechnology