| | AUGUST 20189USING DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES, RETAILERS CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE MASSIVE PRODUCT AND INVENTORY DATABASES THEY ALREADY HAVE, BUILD INTELLIGENT PLATFORMS, AND ENHANCE THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCESSantosh Ktime. This has been possible due to advanced technologies that help them analyze the purchase history data, or automate responses that mimic human interaction using Chatbots. `Personalizing consumer experience' is an innovative way of targeting potential shoppers who might be looking for easy, yet satis-factory shopping experiences. Analysis of a customer data can provide valuable insight on a customer behavior. This can be used to create a targeted market-ing plan, shorten sales cycles, and automate marketing processes. Business intelligence and analyt-ics algorithms, which track sales, inventory and marketing promo-tions, are providing greater ben-efits to the companies. With this analysis, retailers can gain a better understanding of key metrics, ob-tain revenue-driving insights, pre-dict future performance, and make faster and better decisions. Bridging Virtual & Real World Using Video AnalyticsVarious types of video analytics software applications are being used to improve customer's ser-vice and safety. The data shared by these software applications will help a retailer to determine a cus-tomer engagement with a product, as well as their experiences, while navigating through the store. The data will also helps them decide on the store layout and increase the consumer time at the store, there-by improving both revenue and customer experience. Building Robots to Automate Robots are helping the manufac-turing industry through intelligent automation, and are creating a new virtual workforce. This is be-ing achieved by using warehouse robots alongside human workers, and by using an AI-driven plat-form to handle manufacturing and customer queries. Robots are also helping in the manufacturing facil-ities by heavy lifting, pulling items from shelves, stocking shelves, and efficiently packing items. Revolutionize Consumer Experience Using the Internet of Things (IoT)IoT technology is already reshap-ing and revolutionizing the re-tail industry by creating various customer service opportunities, improving supply chain efficien-cies and customer experiences in brick & mortar stores. There is a new trend on the rise: building an IoT-enabled platform which installs smart shelves that detect when inventory is low, coupled with the Radio-frequency Identi-fication (RFID) sensors for track-ing goods throughout the supply chain, digital marketing systems that send personalized digital cou-pons to shoppers when they enter the store, and sensors that monitor the quality of perishable items. All in all, we are witnessing the crowding of advanced digital technologies with specific retail applications that provide deeper insights than ever before. Using digital technologies, retailers can take advantage of the massive product and inventory databases they already have, build intelli-gent platforms, enhance the cus-tomer experiences, and improve operational efficiency, which will improve business results. Indeed, the online shopping will look a lot different in the next few years.
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