Artificial Intelligence in Retail — Could this actually be a blessing in disguise?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the tremendous power to shape up the retail stores. AI technology has already passed its infancy stage and now it is capable of dominating various industries of the market.
The increase in the AI based startups is proof for this. The AI startups have risen more than 1.8 Billion USD in the past 4 years and this technology is deployed in almost all the industries for a better working environment and productivity. The retail industry is one of the biggest industries present out there and artificial intelligence has a greater impact on this industry too.
It has been estimated that by 2025, the AI industry is expected to reach $35,870 Million. AI is capable of changing the entire life circle of a product or sales, right from manufacturing to the after sales support this technology can be incorporated in various situations for the greater good. It benefits both sellers and shoppers.
Since Millennials have got the power to spend and shop for themselves, they are more interested in self-service. Gen Z is more interested in taking control of the entire store where they are shopping, be it an online store or brick and mortar one.
Nearly 64% of millennials are interested to take over the control when they are shopping. This is a great change and AI leverages the entire situation for the retailers. It gives power for the retailers too.
This machine learning and AI technology will allow retailers to give a more personalized experience for the customer. Any customer who walks into a store expects a personalized experience for them and this technology helps in offering them. Every customer is treated in a different way and this results in higher conversion rates.
How AI technology will change the entire retailer marketing?
Well, there are so many ways in which AI impacts the retail stores and change the way human beings operate them. Here are some of the effective ways in which AI changes the market.
Utilizing the Data
Retail stores have a lot of data managed by the retail store software. Usually, this data is neglected and it rots in the database. If this data is utilized properly the conversion rates will start increasing and AI will help in this process.
The customer data that a retail store has can be used to provide a better and personalized experience for customers, create web shops with the data, processing online chatbots to give interactive chatting experience and many more.
Customer information is like a gold mine and you can use it for various purposes. AI helps you in using this information efficiently.
Targeted Marketing
If you want to reach a particular audience effectively, then the first thing that you have to do is show them what they want to see.
The chatbots that are used by businesses right now rely on the information such as keywords and search phrases but with AI, the automation of chatbots will become more advanced. They will adapt to visitors questions and provides them with in-depth answers.
The companies will be able to create better-targeted marketing advertisement which will increase the return on investments.
Changes in Brick and Mortar Stores
By deploying AI, the retailers can change their offline store too. The advancements aren’t just confined to online stores. The staff of the online stores can also be replaced with these AI robots. Famous franchises like Starbucks has already started the procedure and the remaining stores are yet to follow the same.
In the future, when a customer visits the store, he will be provided with a robot that answers all his/her questions and serves the products or services to them. This reduces manual errors completely.
No More Trying on Clothes
Shopping for clothes is a time-consuming task. You have to spend a lot of time in searching for the dress you want from the plethora of options and then trying on each and every dress to see that they match your style or not is another task.
You can avoid both of them with the help of AI. You will be able to see all the dresses that the store have at one glance on the screen and selecting the dress you want to try on is also easy.
You can check whether the dresses suits you or not via a virtual mirror without even undressing. A life-size mirror will provide you with the image of you in the dress that you have selected. The guesses and the touch-based interface will help you to mix and match various types of outfits.
This is a simple method to know which dress suits you perfectly without changing the clothes at all. These are some of the dynamic changes that can be brought in the retail industry with Artificial Intelligence.
It is really going to happen and after observing the pace at which AI is evolving, the robot sales people are coming to the offline stores pretty quickly.
