How Technology Can Drive Retail Growth and Expansion

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Technology has become so deeply embedded with business that it has become necessary for business owners to be able to read technology beyond ordinary standards. They should also be able to read the business implications of different technologies. Only then will they be able to identify and pick the best tools and technologies for their businesses. However, the problem moves to another level when it comes to assessing the power of technology as the driver of business growth and expansion. This is what this blog seeks to uncover. This blog highlights how technology can help retailers to scale their businesses.

ECommerce Adoption and Omnichannel

One of the glaring examples that showcase the prowess of technology is eCommerce. By adopting eCommerce technologies, traditional retail brands and businesses can reach out to new market locations as a part of their retail store expansion strategy. Retailers can do so by developing their own eCommerce capabilities or availing of cloud-based eCommerce platform services. Another big advantage with eCommerce is that retailers do not have to stock everything in their stores. They can dispatch goods directly from their warehouses. This also makes it feasible to offer an extended range of products in eCommerce. Thus, eCommerce allows retail expansion both in terms of access to new markets and extended assortment.

Once eCommerce is adopted, going omnichannel becomes an obvious choice as well as a necessity. With the presence of both online and offline channel capabilities for catering to customers, retailers can do much more than sell. They can provide a seamless shopping experience to customers over an integrated online-offline shopping journey. Omnichannel is a leveraging force that is missing from only store-based selling or selling only via online channels. It is an opportunity to give more control and flexibility to customers over their shopping journeys. Technology helps cover the weaknesses that exist in online or offline channels individually. For example, customers can keep track of the movement of their orders. This provides transparency and a sense of relief when buying things online.

M-Commerce is one of the sprouting roots of eCommerce. Even though many customers prefer larger screens mobile-based shopping apps have been the popular choice, especially among the younger generations. So, when traditional retail brands and businesses adopt eCommerce, m-commerce is something that they cannot avoid. They will have to make their eCommerce apps and websites user-friendly for use on today’s mobile phones. This improves their chances of succeeding with eCommerce and providing the desired omnichannel experience to customers and a smooth UX. The notification feature on smartphones also allows retail brands to keep their customers informed of the latest news and updates. To make a long story short, m-commerce improvises eCommerce.

Customer Relations and CRM

Before anything else, it is very important to realise that the essence of customer relations is to strengthen the brand’s connection with customers. It is a wide world open for interpretation but here’s what we think good customer relations bring to a business:

• Repeat business
• Frequent returns
• Increase in enquiries via visits/calls/messages/emails
• Exhibiting brand preference
• Bringing in new customers (friends and family)
• Increase in purchase volumes over time
• Increased participation in events and promotions
• Brand advocacy
• Word-of-mouth (if there is a way to measure)
• Positive online reviews
• Decent engagement levels of social media
• Increase in voluntary feedback
• Reduction in complaints/grievances

Maintaining positive and encouraging customer relations is necessary to build a loyal base of customers. Before moving on to data and technology, retailers should establish why they want to build strong customer relations and how they want to build it. Good customer relations is critical for retail growth and expansion. You cannot build a business empire on the foundation of weak customer relations. Consider any big retail brand and you will see they sincerely value their customers and they have been doing so for years and decades.

Now comes the role of data and technology. When a business becomes large in size and operations, it becomes very difficult for its owners or founders to interact with customers as they might have been able to do when it was only one or two stores. CRM technologies allow businesses to gather, read, and analyse customer data like purchase history, preferences, and interactions on a massive scale. It allows business owners and strategic think tanks to read customer behaviour and bring the necessary changes to improve customer relations. Some of the technological solutions that empower today’s CRM in retail are:

• Enterprise-Level CRM applications
• ECommerce platforms
• POS systems
• Marketing automation
• Analytics and BI
• AI and ML
• Virtual Try-On and Augmented Reality (AR)
• Chatbots and virtual assistants
• Social media management tools and applications

As experienced retail consultants, YRC always stresses that data and technology come later; the primary emphasis should be to know your customers better and serve them better so that they become brand advocates. And how to serve them better? By understanding who they are and decoding their needs as well as aspirations, technology can be a helping hand in this. Over time, you may also have to redefine who your core customers are – keeping your retail store expansion aspirations in mind.

Operational Excellence

The quality of operations planning and execution set the stage for retail growth and expansion as well as drive the same. Technology provides the necessary assistance for strategizing, planning, implementing, and executing operations at superior levels.

The first in the list is the use of big data and advanced analytical tools. It is a technology that enables the collection and study of huge volumes of data from a multitude of sources including POS systems, eCommerce platforms, web and app analytics, and customer support systems. This data is crucial to understanding trends in sales, user behaviour, consumer behaviour across channels and touchpoints, hiccups in omnichannel experiences, and operational efficiency and effectiveness. Data provides crucial support for decisions made from business acumen. In managing retail growth and expansion, the gravity of such decisions is largely dependent on data and analytics.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has expanded the scope of demand forecasting while making it easier. AI models can handle wide varieties of data from diverse sources – something which was traditionally not possible for machines to do. This makes AI-powered demand forecasting tools more agile and trustworthy. AI not just relies on historical data but also on contemporary data and then it improvises its output based on its learning mechanism. However, even the scope of AI is still limited and it is important for businesses to know what that scope is. AI is a big technological leap forward in empowering businesses to make demand forecasting more agile. Speaking of how it can help in business growth and expansion – not using the power of AI simply means limiting oneself by not embracing a technology that can bring significant advantages. Missing out on giving an edge to demand forecasting could mean a lot on the front of retail operations efficiency and effectiveness.

Examples of other technologies reshaping retail operations management include:

• RFID tags and IoT sensors for real-time visibility into stock levels across locations
• AI-powered route optimization, warehouse automation, and predictive analytics
• Self-checkout kiosks, scan-and-go technology, and mobile POS devices

The quality of operations management cannot be side-lined even when not striving for retail growth and expansion; it has direct ramifications on business survival itself. Technology is the helping assistant that makes operations management sharper and more accurate while lending the ability to handle more business volume.

Data and Analytics for Formulating Strategies

One of the facets of using technology in business is data & analytics (used together as one word for reading convenience). Data analytics help retail brands and businesses become more customer-centric by providing deep insights into hyper-personalisation, customer lifetime value prediction, churn prediction, and sentiment analysis. And by being more customer-centric, retailers come up with more effective strategies and more relevant offerings. For example, by using churn prediction insights, retailers can redirect their focus to more relevant customer groups and segments potentially leading to higher ROI, more sales, more profitability, and more capabilities to internally drive scale.

Data analytics provide significant assistance in achieving improved operational efficiency – something that is essential for scalability. To begin with, modern-day data analytics solutions powered by AI give more accuracy to demand forecasting. This accuracy goes on to reduce situations of under-stocking and overstocking which helps in improving cash flow and inventory turnover and optimise inventory-related costs.

Data analytics combined with other technologies allow retailers to adopt dynamic pricing. Done right, dynamic pricing enhances the possibility of customers making purchases. It also allows aligning prices to real-time and localised demand levels creating the scope for optimising revenue and profitability. Retail expansion does not necessarily mean additional stores or moving to bigger floors; it also includes making the best of what is there and technology helps with it.

Data analytics also help in making certain critical decisions like site selection and product assortment in retail expansion endeavours. In evaluating and finding the best locations for stores and warehouses, a lot of factors have to be considered. Unaided intelligence is not adequate to make such calls. Data analytics provide the technical capability to analyse a diverse range of data sets. In product assortment, data analytics can provide the needed insights to localise product and service offerings.

Wrapping Up

ECommerce is one of the finest examples to show how technology can transform a retail business limited by geographical constraints. By adopting eCommerce, traditional retail brands and businesses can cater to new markets. And once eCommerce is adopted, going omnichannel becomes an obvious choice as well as a necessity. With technology defining the systems for omnichannel capabilities, retailers can do much more than sell. Omnichannel is a window for greater scope of regulation and docility. And like omnichannel, m-commerce is also something that cannot be avoided. Even though many customers prefer larger screens mobile-based shopping apps have been the popular choice, especially among the younger generations. To improve their chances of succeeding with eCommerce and providing the desired omnichannel experience to customers and a smooth UX, retailers have to make their shopping apps and websites compatible for use on smartphones.

Maintaining positive and encouraging customer relations is necessary to build a loyal base of customers. At an expanded level of business and operations, it is no longer easy for business owners or founders to closely monitor customer relations. This is where CRM technologies help and allow businesses to gather, read, and analyse customer data like purchase history, preferences, and interactions on a massive scale.

The quality of operations management sets the foundation for growth and expansion as well as drives the same. Technology provides the necessary assistance for strategizing, planning, implementing, and executing operations at superior levels. Technology is the helping assistant that makes operations management sharper and more accurate while lending the ability to handle more business volume.

Data analytics help retail brands and businesses become more customer-centric and come up with more effective marketing strategies for generating more sales and higher profitability.

Data analytics also provide significant assistance in achieving improved operational efficiency.

Data analytics combined with other technologies allow retailers to use dynamic pricing.

Data analytics also help in making certain critical decisions like site selection and product assortment in growth and expansion endeavours.

Growth and expansion in retail does not necessarily mean additional stores or moving to bigger floors; it also includes making the best of what is there and technology helps in it.

About Your Retail Coach

YRC is a retail-eCommerce consulting firm with a nascent international presence. We seek to entrench our name as one of the most trusted retail consulting partners globally. With over ten-plus years in business, YRC has worked with 500+ clients in over 25 verticals with a success ratio of over 94%.

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