The retail industry is no longer a tavern for old technologies where customers don’t budge from their loyal brands. In a competitive retail ecosystem, every business is finding it difficult to keep customers engaged, delighted and convert every potential opportunity into sales. Technology has been a catalyst for the retail industry for years and with the influx of disruptive tech like Artificial Intelligence, the retail atmosphere is expected to evolve.
But how do we leverage artificial intelligence to make a retail POS system for the future? Well, according to industry statistics, there is a wide gap that AI technology can address. According to Adobe Digital Trends Report 2018, just 15 percent of the enterprises are using AI despite growth in in-store payments. The possibilities are limitless. Let’s see how AI can improve in-store experience through robust POS solutions for the future:
Gather Valuable Customer Insights
Data is the most valuable commodity in the 21st century. By infusing the power of AI to POS systems, retailers can gather and analyze huge amounts of customer data to derive valuable insights. AI can be used to promise integrated automation that can give POS the capability to process data from multiple touch-points in real time.
Retailers can use data from online platforms, customer purchase history, past shopping preferences to understand what attracts them to buy more. Also, when a large amount of data is processed together, it can help in discovering significant insights into improving the customer experience.
By utilizing the data gathered through automation & AI, businesses can improve their service proposition, enhance user experience and ultimately improve revenues.
Pave Way for Targeted Marketing Campaigns
As discussed before, AI gives businesses the power to gather and automatically analyze vast amounts of data across multiple touch points. When such capabilities will infuse with marketing, it will lead to smart campaigns that appeal to the psyche of the modern consumer.
With AI-driven POS solutions, retail marketers can quickly turn heaps of data into valuable insights that will promote real-time targeting. AI algorithms evolve with volume of diverse data. When POS solution will be connected to the marketing channel funneled through AI technology, marketers will understand preferences better and create interesting offers, products or services that can attract customers at the moment they need it the most, or even before.
As stated by Smart Data Collective, real-time marketing driven by AI can increase sales opportunities by 20% when compared to an AI-less marketing strategy.
Azilen has been developing advanced POS retail solutions for a while now and has helped eminent industry players like Adega. Read more about how we brainstormed and developed next-gen POS for Adega that is suitable for the future needs of the retail industry.
Create Secure In-store Payment Ecosystems
AI has made the whole payment ecosystem securer through smart algorithms. For the retail and POS industry this means faster checkouts and increased levels of reliability. Retail establishments can manage risks and boost security through a smart AI-based algorithm.
AI can help in accelerating payment processes by identifying loyal customers through algorithms and blocking suspicious payments, easily. This will result in a huge amount of cost saving due to reduced chargebacks and increased productivity of retail staff.
Foster Delightful Customer Experiences
According to a study by IBM, 45% customers expect better or same level of personalized shopping experience in-store that they enjoy online. AI has the power to provide high levels of personalization by creating intelligent POS solutions that can leverage cognitive computing abilities for smart analytics.
AI can analyze the data gathered by POS and can transform the in-store shopping experience. Kiosks and digital signage modules can be fuelled by AI to recognize retail shoppers, analyze their past behaviors and show relevant product displays. Also, smart assistants can recommend products based on their behaviors, preferences and needs. At the time of checkout, AI-powered devices can capture cues from shopper’s emotions & reactions to improve the recommendation engine for higher engagement.
Promote In-store Fraud Detection & Prevention
Legacy POS systems are susceptible to frauds and thefts. And a retail business owner understands how each penny impacts the bottom line. With the help of AI, retailers can keep an eye on products, activities, transactions and behaviors that help prevent fraud and makes it easier to detect chances of thefts.
With AI’s powerful data analytical capabilities that can monitor everything in real time, it is easier to keep a check on suspicious activities and alerting retailers in real-time. Earlier, large-scale monitoring of employees, inventories, transactions, purchase & sales was next to impossible due to limited data management & analysis capabilities.
As AI-driven POS system gather and analyze large amounts of data, the process of monitoring has become simpler and require less number of resources. AI can quickly identify suspicious activities among thousands of transactions, efficiently and even predict if an activity can be considered as a precursor to fraud. Integrating AI capabilities in POS & video surveillance systems can help in eliminating the chances of frauds and thefts owing to real-time monitoring.
Stimulate Intelligent In-store Product Placement
One critical area that has been a great challenge for retailers around the globe is concerning how to place the products inside the stores. There have been elaborate discussions about how retailers smartly display inventories to lure customers, but in reality, this has been a case of ‘hit & try’ success, at least when we talk about small & mid-sized retailers.
With the power of AI, stores can leverage smart insights to discover shopping patterns and preferences. Then, they can place products frequently brought together close buy to influence buying behaviors. Naturally, all these data would come from POS terminals. As all the data would be captured in real-time at the location, such a product placement strategy would surely work to improve sales figures in the short and long run.
It is undoubtedly assured that AI has a lot to promise and deliver for the retail industry. Specifically for the POS domain, AI can take things to the next level owing to its capability to capture, analyze and deliver valuable facts and figures that would improve operations, increase in-store engagement and positively impact the bottom line. It is to be seen how AI technology can further impact the retail ecosystem as we know it.
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