The future of retail is all about shopper experience, according to Intel.
The future of retail is all about shopper experience, according to Intel. Speaking at a webinar along with RetailNext, George Loranger, Product Marketing Manager at the chipmaker said consumers of the future want their experiences to be unique and analytics could play an important role in meeting their demands.
“Yesterday it was, ‘hey let’s just make sure there is this good product on the shelves. People would come in and shop and if they can’t find exactly what they are looking for they’ll find a substitute’,” said Loranger.
Today, it’s all about unified commerce. It’s about how we understand consumer shopping behavior online and rematch it to the physical store. Thus we see applications or opt-in programs that try to bridge the gap between online shopping behavior and what you can deliver in store.
“But tomorrow, it’s really all about consumer experience,” Loranger continued. “People want to be treated differently, they want attention from sales associates, they want to come in and experience new things. It’s not just about bridging online with physical stores, but providing that next level experience that’s unique and positions the retailer to really deliver what their customers want.”
Intel’s vision and importance of video analytics
“We focus on analytics, and providing that next level of customer experience,” Loranger explained. “You might see some retailers experimenting with virtual reality, which again is great, can be an incredible experience, but probably not the most scalable across the entire enterprise.”
He added that there are different ways in which what Intel does with analytics can be perceived. The company treats analytics as the base to be able to do anything in store. Taking an instance of inventory management, Loranger explained further.
“We’ve heard some executives from some very large retailers in the US say that inventory accuracy is the ticket of entry to do any sort of analytics in store because first, you have to know what you have before you can show it properly and then deliver what the customer wants.”
Once you know your inventory, you can take analytics to the next level by including options like video analytics that would help understand how customers interact with products. Then the retailers would be able to create unique experiences for the customers.
“What we are most excited about in partnering with companies like RetailNext is a kind of this next gen sensor where you start to incorporate video and other sensors as part of the same platform within the same sensor. So now you overlay your video analytics and the amazing things you get from that, from identifying customers, demographics, the way they move, path to purchase, with that inventory movement, and this kind of fused data [is] stuff we haven’t seen before in physical retail. We’re really excited about this.”