The arena of technology is an ever-changing space; every other day, you have new technology or process that changes a certain sector of the global market for good. One such sector is retail; its performance has never changed a bit in the last decade despite of many hardships in the market. Automation in the retail sector is mandatory as it handles numerous processes to satisfy the needs of the customers. The retail industry is vast in terms of establishments across the world or the number of users associated with the same. There are more than four million retail stores in the USA. These stores contributes trillions of dollars to the GDP of the country.
Automation in the retail industry is a basic need as time changed its pace. Now consumers are always in a hurry for something; they want a faster process that can match the pace of their lifestyle. In order to manage that pace, it is often seen that retail business owners implement some solutions that end up boosting the expenses. Automation is the key to save on operation costs and make a good amount of revenue with ease. The problem occurs in implementing automation in retail. Well, it is not as complicated as you think. In this blog, we will discuss the areas of the retail business where you can implement automation to enhance your business’s overall productivity and revenue figures.
What is Retail Automation?
In simple terms, every process that happens in retail without any human intervention is automation. For instance, Amazon Go stores have introduced a self-checkout system. Here the customer walks in the store, chooses his item of the day, scans the product, and the payment is automatically deducted from the customer’s account at the time of checkout. This may seem like an effortless process, but there is a lot going on behind the curtains. This overall process is possible because of a store automation system.
When you invest in automation in retail for your business, the key impact of the process is in managing the cost of the operation and implementing advanced operation processes. These can be achieved by various means such as enhancing the workflows, productivity, lowering the overall time of the processes, minimizing errors, and smart inventory management that helps in a smooth supply chain management.
Not only the industrial processes, but automation in retail also help in streamlining various other retail roles that are associated with business process. It helps in building result-oriented marketing and sales strategies that are responsible for lifting up the revenue figures of any establishment. Automation software helps retailers in extracting more from their current strategies by minimizing human intervention. Analyzing the huge amount of data manually is kind of a mind-numbing task. Such software analyzes tons of data sets in a less amount of time and delivers intelligent insights that ultimately lead to better lead conversion.
What are the Benefits of Automation in Retail?
Any technology in the IT world comes with a set of benefits, so does retail automation. The benefits include maximizing the profits, streamlining the process, and much more. The automation process can be considered as an initial investment, and the results can be counted as good returns. Let’s have a look at the top benefits of automation in the retail sector.
1. Reduce Resource Costs
As the definition of the process states, it requires less human intervention; Hence, the majority of the processes will be handled by various software and applications, which will reduce the overall resource cost. With retail automation, you will get the enhanced results with fewer resources in the same time frame.
2. Enhanced Process Tracking
Retail businesses which still rely on the pen and paper method to track the progress of their process have still not made any progress. The reason is quite simple, retail automation reduces the number of errors made in the process and suggests ways to improve them at the earliest; on the other hand, the traditional tracking method has many flaws, and there is always a chance of human error.
3. Enough Time to Plan
When almost all of the business process is automated, you will end up with a ton of free time in your hand, which can be used to plan the market strategies efficiently, growing the business, and much more. Imagine a business process, error-free, cost-effective, and a lot of time to plan; this is business process automation in retail.
4. Enhanced Customer Satisfaction Rate
After the implementation of automation in your retail business, you will notice a spike in the customer satisfaction rate that will soon turn into an impressive client retention rate. The reason behind this change is the fast processing of services, inventory management, and much more.
5. Fraud Protection
No matter wherever you go, whichever sector you choose, fraudulent activity is everywhere. In the case of the retail sector, it surpasses the normal figure; however, the retail automation software reduces these fraudulent activities by a large number and protects your business at the same time. In case of any threat or fraudulent activity, retail automation software raises a red flag which gives you time to act.
6. Seamless Process
Most of the retail stores in the world are operated by humans; they are behind the cash register, in the shopping aisle to recommend products, and more. But retail automation has introduced stores that use a minimum of human resources and more of software and machines. They use POS machines for easier checkout, intelligent applications for exact recommendations, and more.
7. Enhanced Scalability
Workflow automation software in retail boosts up the sales figures of any business, and it is feasible to scale. It grows with the business and delivers insights as per the business needs. They are easily maintained and helps in attracting a significant amount of revenue.
Implementing Retail Automation
Automation in retail in the current times is not a choice; rather, it is a necessity and the reason is quite simple. Everyone in the market wants more profit and sales, majority of the businesses have already implemented it and are ahead of the competition. The customers of the current generations love the new technology implementation in the retail sector. They are amazed by the smooth checkout process, smart recommendations, and much more.
Hence, to stay ahead of the competitors or to gain more customers and make a significant revenue figure, automation must be considered. Well, the majority of the confusion arises in the process of implementation, but it is not that complicated as people think. It can be done process by process or simply automate a specific process of your retail business that you think needs it the most. Here are some ways you can implement automation in retail.
Inventory Management
Any retail business starts or ends with inventory management; it is the foundation of the business. In case you lack in managing the inventory efficiently, the sales of the business will automatically drop. Hence, it is more than important to manage the inventory with precision. Goods that stay longer than the expected time in the inventory are nothing but an addition to the loss percentage. Automating the inventory of your retail business can help you in numerous ways that will change the trajectory of growth.
With retail POS software, you can easily automate the process; it can also be done with the help of software. These systems help in conducting inventory counts and send the information to the central system for an update. In case of low stocks, you can always order some new stock in time and match the expectation of your customers. These systems also send real-time notifications.
Inventory management software can be trained to automatically register new orders for fresh stocks with the suppliers of the business to maintain a smooth flow. If you think about it, when your inventory will always be stocked up with the in-demand products, you will never miss a single order, which translates to better customer relationships and more numbers in the revenue figures. Apart from these processes, you can always manage any loss efficiently.
Outlet Automation
Now that you have your inventory sorted, the next step comes to the store or outlet where you sell your products and services. The majority of the retail stores are still made or brick and mortar, which is good as people need some placed to socialize. Remember, when your customer is satisfied, the business will ultimately attract more customers and ultimately more revenue.
Implementing automation in retail is not as much complicated as you think; there are various live examples of the same all around the world. For instance, Amazon Go; a completely automated store. The only people you will see there are the workers who stock up the products aisles. You can also implement the same with the use of programmable robots, automated vending machines, and much more. You can take this to the next level and ask your development partner to build a retail outlet automation system that controls the overall store processes, from purchasing to invoicing.
Easy Software Integration
One of the important parts of retail automation is software integration. It is often found that the systems of the retail outlets are incompatible with any piece of technology, making it hard to streamline the process. Matellio develops intelligent retail solutions with technologies like AI and IoT, which enhances the overall performance of your business. With our custom retail software development, you can offer an amazing experience to the customers.
You can integrate retail chatbots that guide the customers through the offers available, product recommendations, and much more. The chatbots are more interactive, and people prefer chatbots over a real conversation with a real human being. These chatbots learn the shopping behavior of the customers and suggest them recommendations based on solid data. You can turn the automation up a notch by integrating our flawlessly engineered IoT-based retail software, which will help you in automated store checkout and organizing the supply management.
Supply Chain Automation
The competition in the retail sector is never going to decrease, especially with so many technological innovations on the way. In order to stay ahead of the competition, you must automate your supply chain. It does come with a bundle of advantages for the business, such as enhanced accuracy, reduced manual efforts, and an enhanced rate of productivity. Supply chain management of any other genre is quite different from the one that prevails in the retail sector as it has to deliver a large volume of fast-moving consumer goods. It has to be monitored closely as the cycle time is extremely low.
The modern lifestyle is fast-moving; users like faster checkout, faster payments, and much more. The concept of adapting is in full swing in the current times; they are in search of more convenient ways of shopping, they want it delivered to their doorstep, and more. These expectations are meant to increase the challenges in your retail business. However, custom retail software is always a better option to automate the supply chain to meet the massive demand waves that come your way every day.
Some common devices that are used in automating the retail sector are, Automated backroom unloading, electronic shelf labels, Shelf scanning robots, Secure lockers, Automated retail vending machines, Label printers & compact labelers, Touch POS terminals, Self-checkout terminals, Shelf-edge labels, Vision AI cabinets, Mobile POS, info kiosks, and much more.
Ready to Implement Automation in Your Retail Business?
Business process automation in retail has an important role in today’s society. Raging competition has changed the way people shop; numerous innovations have paved the path for more intelligent solutions. Automation is being used for a number of purposes, and they have never been more affordable than they are today.
Enhance your customer satisfaction rate and the overall business productivity with an intelligent retail software solution from Matellio. Our range of custom retail solutions includes retail chatbots, AI-based solutions (such as inventory planning market segmentation, etc.), AR/ VR-based Retail Apps, IoT-based Retail Software, and more.
Our experienced and highly trained engineers have developed several smart retail solutions, which have received excellent appreciation from the clients and their customers. We are referred to as the best retail software development company in the market. Our retail solutions are developed with extreme precision and fit perfectly with your business needs. Talk to our experts about your unique idea over a 30-min free consultation call. Fill the form now!
