RetailT “This will be the year when we see a change from
fixed to mixed estate point-of-sale [PoS] devices. I don’t think we will see a complete transition to MPoS [mobile point-of-sale], but more and more retailers will have mixed estates – with a combination of both fixed and mobile point of sales terminals.” He predicted a great deal of technology spend
will be around Windows Embedded and urged retailers to consider investment in this area to speed up and simplify the adoption of new technologies. “Integration into a Windows environment becomes far simpler and it offers a high degree of cross- platform compatibility,” he claimed. Elmes also believed that one technology that
will come to the fore during 2014 will be interactive touch. “Retailers need to focus on continually updating and refreshing their interactive content to provide an engaging customer experience,” he added. At the end of 2013, Box launched its Instore
Technology Centre in Thame, which brings together customer engagement, technology across areas including tablet computing, mobile payment, footfall analysis, digital signage, networked content management and new PoS concepts. It is unlikely that the IT spending predictions of Elmes in the offline world will come at the expense of investments already made online. But Shelley E. Kohan, vice president of retail consulting at store analytics provider RetailNext, agreed 2014 would be the “action year for omnichannel”. She said: “Retailers will spend time evolving
both their online and physical retail channels to operate more synergistically. Additionally, there is the premise of advanced immediacy, which means that today’s customer requires retailers to have the product they want, at the price they want to pay for it and via the in the location they want to purchase it from. Right product, right price, and right location have never been more important for retailers.” Kohan also forecast that this year instore analytics
would help brick-and-mortar retailers gain greater insight into shopping behaviour instore. “Similar to ways online retailers can understand what happens when customers come into the store, where they go, and how they spend their time,” she said. “Once a customer comes into the store, understanding where they spend their time is important to driving future sales. RetailNext can measure the shoppers’ path to purchase from how many come in, to what department, aisles or fixtures create the most interest.” If 100 people walk by a store window, and 30 come in, the store has captured 30%, Kohan added. “If that
www.retailtechnology.co.uk
Customers have become much more empowered and demand greater levels of interactivity instore
echnology
window changes tomorrow, and the 30% increases to 42%, that is a powerful metric to understand,” she said, claiming that retailers who deploy RetailNext can achieve increased sales of 6-7% in the first year. “Retailers have also been trying to create closer connections with their customers,” she said. So retailers must look to engage customers
wherever they are to deliver more relevant or personalisaed marketing to customers. “Many retailers have some type of loyalty programme, and using mobile device detection and free Wi-Fi opt-in are great ways for them to grow their programmes,” Kohan advised. Increased mobile device adoption by consumers
will also boost investment in technologies that can engage and influence the customer at the point of decision. Dan Hartveld, technical director at digital technology agency Red Ant, is envisaging IT-based location and identification tools will enable the personalised retail journeys Kohan encouraged. “Bluetooth LE [Low Energy] beacon technology,
which is essentially ‘GPS for indoors’, allow for personalised, micro-location based notifications and alerts,” he said. “The technology has the power to revolutionise retail in an exciting way – expect to see widespread adoption over the next 12 months.” Hartveld added that ‘wearable’ technology will go mainstream and that personal area networks will make a comeback. “Early adopters have been quick to take to the wearable tech which is currently available – Pebble, Galaxy Gear, Fitbit, Nike+ and so on. 2014 should see it cross over into the mainstream, possibly overnight if (self-proclaimed) arbiter of innovation Apple announces the much- anticipated iWatch,” he explained. “And Personal Area Networks, introduced when
Bluetooth first made an appearance, will come to the fore again as networks comprising wearable sensors linked to the internet via smartphones become a more feasible reality, thanks to Bluetooth LE.” But, with so many new sources of customer data available, Alan Taylor, retail industry principal for SAP in the UK and Ireland, stated that predictive analytics would loom large in the future. “As retailers continue to develop their go-to-
market strategies to include multiple channels, the volume of internal and external data is increasing exponentially,” concluded Taylor. “As such, having the technology in place to enable retailers to understand and use this information intelligently will ensure they are better placed to grow in an ever- crowded marketplace.”
Winter 2014 33
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