Four digital trends for the retail industry
Voice Commerce
They are small, respond to speech and are becoming the new digital everyday helpers. We're talking about voice-controlled devices like Amazon Alexa (Echo). They have evolved greatly over the past few years. One example of this is this year's Amazon Prime Day, when special products could only be ordered via the voice assistant.The result: every second, an order was received via voice commerce. Anyone who wants to profit from this trend should integrate this type of commerce into their digital ecosystem. One approach to developing such services is service design: with a user-centric, analytical and interdisciplinary approach, it helps companies to design the services of tomorrow. This is essential, because individual and customized services are increasingly becoming the most important differentiator in the market.
Customer centricity B2B
Customer Centricity is already on the agenda of many B2C companies and is even seen as a decisive success factor for the future. In 2018, B2B companies must also follow suit - despite immense challenges. The much closer integration of (sales) processes and the high complexity of customer journeys make it difficult to develop value-creating software systems, e-commerce solutions or applications. Product configurators for capital goods, for example, open up a new point of contact with the company and, ideally, allow orders to be placed. Communication is also becoming increasingly digital and personal: A customer journey that starts in the customer portal is transferred to the customer relationship management system and continued digitally until the contract is concluded. This creates consistency and a 360-degree customer image. Digital customer proximity and sustainable customer loyalty are the consequences.
Virtual Reality
Driving to the furniture store on the weekend is tedious and nerve-wracking. That's why pioneers like IKEA are turning to virtual reality (VR). With the "IKEA Place" app, the living room can be supplemented with the desired furnishing item at the touch of a button - and in real time. Thanks to this technological innovation, the shopping experience is being elevated to a new, digital level. What's more, companies are not only gaining competitive advantages, but can also increase their sales. This example proves it: VR is more than just a gimmick. It can give a new boost to entire industries, such as the furniture market.
New logistics concepts
Whether at the neighbor's, at the post office or at the pick-up station - the positive customer experience often ends at delivery at the latest. What is so easy to find and buy online is now difficult to obtain in the offline world. In order to optimize this step in the customer journey, retailers are required to develop new logistics concepts today and in the future. They must enable customers to enjoy a consistently pleasant process. The following approaches are particularly promising: Firstly, smart pop-up boxes, which are delivered to the customer's own car trunk or to DB station compartments. A third variant is self-driving delivery, i.e. delivery by drones or self-driving robots. In addition to the integration of such solutions into the company's own value chain, there are two further challenges: Firstly, the customer must not feel the complexity of the internal processes - one click should suffice. Second, the issue of security in delivery is becoming increasingly important. Customers will only use reliable and trustworthy alternatives and perceive them as a relief.
