Many global enterprises have been testing the implementation of new technologies to improve their customer’s experience and increase sales. The level of understanding the consumer journey and the buyer’s behavior has taken the retail to a really different level. As we use to rely on the human sales approach, now the machine is taken over by predicting what could be suitable for you as a customer and recommending you products with higher chance of purchase.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence can predict a buyers purchasing pattern. For example, if you shop from a specific site a very frequent item, the AI will look at your frequency of purchase and the linked items that you buy. This will show up first on the page on your next visit to the shop site. The AI can even take a lead to email you the promotions on your favorite products.
Artificial intelligence has been integrated in smart retail shops as well. Smart shelves will analyze your MAG (Mood, age, Gender) to display a specific product ad when you approach the smart shelves. This new artificial technology has allowed the brands not only to categorize the offering and the ads based on the buyer, but as well feeding live the company with the buying behavior (For example: How long the customer was standing in front of the shelf? Which product cough the customer’s attention first? Which products has been selected by the customer and which products has been taken by the customers and returned back after reading the products information? All those data are analyzed to improve the next customers visit for a more successful buying ratio.
The AI is helping the retailers understand not only the buyers but as well the product sourcing, quantities and even a more realistic sales forecast. This is helping the large companies in product and cash flow optimization. The AI will not stop there; it’s now touching the 360 elements of a retail company. From hiring to finance, more systems are being linked together to drive excellence at the stores, increase sales and allowing the retail management to focus more on the strategic tasks rather than the operational ones.
(Global Retail TV Director)