Ecommerce has impacted the retail industry like never before. Despite the transformation, the majority of retail transactions still occur in brick-and-mortar stores. To protect and maximize your revenue, you have to invest in technology that optimizes the in-store experience.
What characterizes the store of the future?
The customers built the perception of your brand when they are engaging with your store – often through many different channels. Every touch point is carefully considered to ensure a smooth, easy, and memorable customer journey. The customer is offered a seamless customer experience every time they interact with your brand.
The store of the future does not just serve as a simple point of purchase. The physical stores have shifted from focusing on transactions and sales to become a point of inspiration. A brick-and-mortar store is now a testing lab, a helpdesk, and a site for orders and returns. It is a place, where your customers can easily make a return and pick up online orders or see, feel and try on an item before buying.
The future store does not add complexity to the shopping experience – it removes it. In the end, a next generation store will improve your customer satisfaction and drive sales.
Get your store ready for the future
If you want to meet the demands and expectations of your customers, you need to transform the way your customers interact with your business. We give you three ways on how to do so:
#1 Merge your data
Overview and insight in orders and inventory are key when building an extraordinary customer experience. The right technology to analyze and store data is essential if you want to create a great shopping experience.
When data lives in more than one place, it can quickly become inconsistent and unreliable. If you truly want to trust your data, you have to merge it into one place. With a single version of the truth, you and the Sales Assistants can be certain that orders, returns, and inventory are up to date in the system. With a proper insight into your customers’ orders and inventory, you can offer the best possible service quickly and without unanswered questions.
Do you have an ERP system that collects and merges all of your data? Microsoft Dynamics NAV might be the solution.
#2 Get your store equipment in place
A next generation store uses a next generation POS solution. A POS system that should empower the Sales Assistants in making easy and friction-free sales. Additionally, it should provide the customers with the right kind of information.
The great customer experience involves a great customer service. The future of retail is characterized by new ways of offering a good customer service in the store. For instance, you can install a Digital Sales Assistant in the fitting room or give your customers the opportunity to request assistance in the store.
Sales Assistants should be able to trust that the prices and inventory on their POS devices are consistent across channels. An integrated POS system and inventory gives you the opportunity to provide your customers with the specific information they request. Do you want to optimize your inventory processes in your store and simultaneously offer a great service? Then Mixed Reality might be the solution for you. Watch a video of the solution below.
Have a look at how a Sales Assistant utilizes Mixed Reality in a shoe store
#3 Optimize your supply chain
Customers today expect a streamlined integration on all sales channels. To provide your customers with the ultimate omnichannel experience, it is essential to have a closer look at your supply chain.
The store of the future should offer click and collect, returns to store and ordering items across stores. To provide this kind of service, the customers should have real-time order and inventory information from the web store as well as the Sales Assistants that serve them in the store. Additionally, inventory and supply chain needs to be updated at all times to make the Sales Assistant trust that their orders are going through and give the customer the opportunity to track packages.
Meet the customers’ expectations to the store of the future
Let your store be a part of the future of retail. It is time to ask yourself: How omnichannel is my retail business? Are my current POS and ERP systems helping me achieve my goals? Or are they holding me back?
Do you want to try our POS system?
Get a 30-day access to our POS solution, NP Retail on all devices. As a bonus, you also gain access to our web store solution, NP Ecommerce as well as Business Central.
