Retail Visionaries

Just as apparel and product ranges must continually evolve, so too must the adoption and usage of technology in retail to guarantee success. The latest wave of technologies provides retailers with an opportunity to deepen their relationship with the consumer, change the retail experience both online and in-store, and transform business operations.

Like all sectors, retail is assessing how generative AI will enable innovation whilst battling macroeconomic issues and needing to protect much-loved tenants of the retail experience. Innovation is the big debate in retail - a debate Red Badger and SCAYLE fostered at a recent event that brought thought leaders and retailers together.

Retail’s recent history reveals that technology innovation is vital.

“In fashion and lifestyle, consumers are very open to new players”

says Tarek Müller, Co-Founder of ABOUT YOU and SCAYLE.

The technology leader believed that when Amazon entered fashion retailing, it would kill start-ups and new market entrants, but that has not been the case. “Now there is Temo, Shein and TikTok shop is coming. So it seems there is a never-ending supply of new players in the market.”

New technologies and market entrants have heightened the need for customer service innovation. Online shoppers have greater choice than ever. Trocino says: “A consumer doesn’t care if they are buying from Amazon, Shopify, Scayle, it is about the product and it is so easy to compare prices, and they assume everyone has the same delivery options.”

Retailers must drive loyalty, improve the customer experience and embrace the technologies that consumers will expect to be part of their shopping experience. This will include personalisation to make every customer feel recognised as unique.

“Personalisation is the Philosopher’s Stone in retail; it is as old as somebody welcoming you when you walk into a shop or knowing your name,”

says Nick Beighton, former CEO and COO of ASOS.

On personalisation, he adds: “Delivering it [personalisation] at scale is super hard, and that is where you need data because data means you can personalise in a way that has never been available before - as a human cannot keep pace with data the way an AI tool can.”

Despite the importance of personalisation, Müller says its development has disappointed him: “The company is called About You as personalisation is one of our key USPs, and when we founded it in 2014, I thought that by 2025 we would be much more advanced, but it is so complex to execute.” Müller believes a major step forward in personalisation is about to take place. The challenge for fashion retailers is meeting the shopper’s size and fit needs, an area Beighton says has seen a wealth of technologies launched, but he says none of them are quite good enough.

Müller believes AI-generated avatars could soon innovate retail personalisation, but conversion is too low in Beighton’s experience. Both agree that conversational commerce will succeed in the near future and enable an almost touch-free retail experience. “People talk to the TV and Alexa, so it is going to be another area we will have to maximise,” Beighton says.

Innovation is vital, but so too is the enduring quality of community to drive loyalty. “If you have a transactional relationship with the customer, they will judge you on price; if you have a content, and community, they will judge you as a brand, and brand is repeatable,” says Beighton.

Improving Operations

Author
Mark Chillingsworth
Writer, editor, and event moderator who has worked with CIOs, CTOs, and leading tech publications since 2008. He chairs the Horizon CIO Network and previously spent eight years as Editor in Chief of CIO UK, where he launched the CIO Summit and CIO 100.