Retail Market - the Digital Revolution and The New Consumer

The Retail industry is undergoing a significant digital revolution as it migrates from a traditional brick and mortar, uni-channel environment to an  immersive omni channel experience. A large part of this revolution is being driven by changing consumer expectations and the effect of the Internet and smart devices in todays world . Consumers are demanding a shopping experience that lets them choose how and where they shop (physical, mobile, virtual, from their home, using Alexa, and similar). Unlike a decade ago, where shops had loyal consumers and where shop employees understood their customers the best, in todays world,   Facebook, Google and Amazon mine much more consumer data and offer targetted experiences that are better/more streamlined than ever possible before. 

This has  created a large  opportunity for Retailers in terms of being able to sell and advertise their products online and via mobile first shopping experiences. At the same time, this has also  significantly increased competitive threats from the Internet behemoths like Amazon and Google who have essentially lead the digital shopping revolution.

Key Retail Painpoints

It is clear to retailers that adoption of new technology is critical to modernize and digitize their infrastructure to give consumers what they need and also compete with the Internet behemoths. Some of the key pain points for retailers are:

• Offer omni-channel shopping experiences that are more engaging to customers
• Reduce  in-store wait time during checkouts 
• Understanding customers better and offer relevant promotions and services 

HSC's offerings for ISVs/OEMs in the Retail space

HSC is a key technology solutions provider in the retail vertical and leverages its decades of experience in creating effective technology solutions that address the painpoints above. Specifically, here are some of HSC's technology expertise:

• Point of Sale (PoS) Solutions – device driver development, Apple and Google pay application development
• Payment Solutions –Automated kiosk development with face recognition, in-aisle payment solutions via QR scanning
• Mobile Solutions – cross platform, mobile app development with focus on immersive UX
• Beacons - firmware customizations for battery efficiency, beacon based application development 
• Personalization & Analytics - Backend analytics engine development for customer identification, personalization engine development based on buying patterns & social history
• Workforce Management – Time tracking systems &  workforce management systems development (mobile and network app server)
• Digital Marketing – App development for  digital signage solutions, CMS for PoS media, Virtual shelves, instore radio and TV solutions, Gift card solutions, Loyalty card solutions
• Supply Chain & Logistics – solution development for Fleet management, Tracking and tracing, warehouse management
• Concept Solutions - demonstrable and re-usable end to end solutions, from mobile to beacons to analytics put together for  marketing teams and concept stores.

HSC's Innovation Lab: Redefining customer experience

As part of HSC's commitment towards demonstrating technology excellence in solving retailer and customer pain points. HSC's software innovation lab has put together a  Concept Solution  which can demonstrate how technology can efficiently solve and elevate consumer shopping experience.  A Concept Solution, unlike a traditional Proof of Concept, is not throw away code and can be used as an accelerator for deployment. The Concept Solution will demonstrate:

• Leveraging loyalty apps to offer Augmented Reality enhanced shelf product information
• Redefining shelf  'tap here for help' buttons to initiate mobile video calling to customer support, eliminating customer support wait times
• Analytics based effective notifications (example, notfying you if you picked up a peanut product, if you have peanut allergies)
• Quick checkout experience using facial recognition and automatic cash-less/card-less checkouts

As part of its innovation lab, HSC recently demonstrated a complete end-end customer experience engagement solution which spanned from aisle side assistance to machine learning based contextual customer engagement scenarios.

Please click on the preview below to view the complete infographic:

If HSC's retail technology expertise interests you, and/or you are interested in meeting with us for a demo of the Innovation Lab POCS, please contact us via the form below.