The future of retail: a hybrid of in-store and online experience

Having an omnichannel strategy empowered by technology is the key to surviving in the retail industry, with disruptions from the pandemic here to stay.

As the world emerges from the global pandemic, many industries have been forever changed by disruptions, and the retail sector is no exception.

In the second episode of a podcast interview series with Retail Asia, George Pepes, APAC Vertical Solutions and Marketing Lead for Retail, Healthcare, and Hospitality, and Christanto Suryadarma, Sales Vice President of Southeast Asia at Zebra Technologies, shared how technology is a critical component in helping retailers improve their operations and elevate the shopping experience to meet new customer demands.

Self-checkout, mobile-commerce on the rise

The majority of shoppers nowadays are more inclined to get in and out of stores quickly, creating a greater need for retailers to adopt more self-checkout and cashless payment technology.

According to George, this behaviour is driven by shoppers who are still concerned about exposure to COVID and wish to avoid long queues. He noted that it is important for retailers to recognise that new shopping habits developed during the pandemic are now ingrained in the behaviours of consumers. In a nutshell, retail operations need to catch up to the expectations of today’s shoppers.

Christanto added that the omnichannel surge has amplified new customer expectations, with mobile-commerce technologies becoming increasingly important for both customers and retailers in APAC, “About one-third of consumers say they use their mobile devices to look up for competitive pricing or browse online to find websites or products during shopping trips,” he said.

The study also shows that 50% of shoppers say it's faster to look up information on their smartphones. On top of this, more than 25% of the surveyed shoppers also placed, clicked, and collected orders through mobile.

Enabling smarter operations and empowering store associates

The omnichannel shopping patterns of consumers mean that retailers need to be able to fulfil customer demands from their distribution centres to the stores, with George noting that today’s consumers shop “when they want, where they want, how they want, and on whatever platform they want."

To tackle this, retailers need to focus on optimising inventory visibility and tap into technology like RFID to digitise manual pen and paper processes and give store associates real-time visibility of all items in the store.

Retailers also need to look at enabling smarter operations and equipping staff with technology so that associates are able to pick, pack, and process everything ready for shipment from the store. George noted that this would empower store associates and enable more efficient delivery of items, ultimately elevating the customer shopping experience.

Christanto added that “store associates must be trained and equipped with the right technologies and devices to handle evolving omnichannel operations”. This will lead to better management of backend processes and customer experience. Zebra’s study showed that doing this would lead to fueling employees positively in delivering their services well.

Right technology to create the right customer experience

In closing, Christanto highlighted that “technology is the key enabler to delivering value to customers for retailers”, and that Zebra Technologies is currently working with its partners and customers to create the best experience.

George shared that retailers must optimise their whole retail operations to make them efficient and convenient for customers.

The key takeaway is that businesses must adapt to the latest technology to cater to what customers of today need: an omnichannel experience. This entails being able to offer a hybrid of in-store and online experiences without compromising one. To do this, delivering value to customers by leveraging technology will help ensure a seamless experience and create more forward-looking retail businesses.