Future of Retail: Experiential, Hybrid, and Data-Driven
COVID-19 flipped the retail industry upside down. Retailers were suddenly forced to face some of the industry’s most glaring problems — the need to enhance customer experience, shift in purchase decision-drivers, challenging decreasing margins, and streamline operations.
It put Kirana stores, groceries and pharmacies, in a tricky position, however, the major effects of the pandemic were felt by ‘non-essential’ retailers. Brick-and-mortar retailers had to suddenly operate differently; right from maintaining social distancing norms to enabling the completion of the physical shopping purchase cycle.
On the other hand, shopping online became even more popular. New hybrid shopping trends started to take the front stage — such as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) and research online, purchase offline (ROPO) — which meant that retailers had to be prepared to match shifting consumer behaviors and needs.
What retailers need, therefore, is consistent customer experience(CX) across touchpoints and what will help move the needle is the adoption of data, analytics and emerging technologies. There is a greater need now of a phygital world more than ever.
A year after the onset of COVID-19 that triggered an onslaught of the retail industry the smoke is (mostly) beginning to clear.
A new face of retail is beginning to emerge; one which is experience-based, hybrid and data-driven. Design and Build Core Set of Data and Analytics Capabilities. Today, it isn’t about online versus offline shopping, rather about customers increasingly expecting seamless interfaces for their online and/ or in-store experiences.
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To address this need, retailers have sought to maximise choices for their customers while others have begun to focus on creating personalized/ tailored approaches to give customers what they want.
In such an environment, companies that will be able to understand their customers extremely well will be the ones to thrive.
