Technology is essential for marketing, be it for sales, promoting products, or building potential customer relationships. It takes center stage in retail merchandising. Gone are the days when some common strategies were used, like stocking the shelves and marketing them through traditional marketing strategies like printing ads in newspapers, pamphlets, or word of mouth. Now, things are more advanced, with technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) paving the way for companies to market products and personalized recommendations to customers based on their preferences or a real shopping experience using virtual reality.
Let’s learn more about how technology helps drive customers and increase sales and engagement.
Enhance Customer Experience
Earlier, customers used to stand in queues at the billing counter, but with improved technology, they can now make purchases online or pay in seconds via scanners. This helps avoid queues or stores with huge crowds. Though shopping in stores is fun, technology has also made it comfortable. There are technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) where customers can try the product while sitting at home, whether it’s glasses, dresses, or designing interiors. Technology certainly has many ways to offer an enhanced customer experience.
Inventory Management
Technology has changed the way store managers used to manage inventory. They can now track the availability of products, meet customer requirements, and more. Technology is helping retailers track the purchase cycle from buying the product to stocking them in stores with real-time information. With better tracking, retailers will have ideas about the products that are selling and products that need to be replaced.
Data-Driven Decisions
In modern retail merchandising, data is everything to make informed decisions about sales, customer behavior, trends, or product-related decisions to stay ahead of the competition. This is where technology plays an important role in collecting, analyzing, and studying data to make data-driven decisions In the retail industry.
One of the most important data to analyze is customer behavior. It will offer deep insights into their purchase behavior, which will help retailers understand their customer behavior to offer services and personalized experiences. Overall, data is the king in the retail industry that can be used for strategies like A/B testing or sales and performance tracking.
Price Auditing
The traditional method of price auditing used to be complex, as it involved people spending their time visiting the store and collecting product price details. However, with technology, things have become easier. Automated solutions are helping with providing real-time price details. Advanced technologies have streamlined the process of price checks. Companies are following the self-price check process where customers can bill their products in-store. This will not only build customer trust but also save time.
Conclusion
This was just a small part of technology in modern retail merchandising. There are many other aspects where technology is playing a major role in benefiting both customers and stores.
By embracing technology, retailers can deliver fulfilling experiences to their customers. As technology continues to grow, retailers need to stay updated and learn new techniques to stay in the competitive industry.
Also Read: Merchandising Mistakes to Avoid: Common Pitfalls and How to Overcome Them
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