In a Zebra’s global shopper study, 58% of shoppers believe they have a better access to information than most in-store staff ¹. Could this be true of your retail environment? To satisfy high consumer expectations, retailers need to empower their staff with the information they need. Providing sales assistants with mobile devices gives them instant access to product information, up-to-date store inventory, and order availability while on the shop floor.

These devices can also boost in-store communication, and help link tasks to real-time contextual information. For example, if it rains, store assistants can be prompted to move umbrellas to the front of the store to increase sales.

For most brands, brick-and-mortar retail is now the key touchpoint for direct customer experience where people can go to see, touch and try products. But, because shoppers today are used to being in control, they often find the traditional checkout experience frustrating.

Instead, retailers can provide more handheld self-service devices, so customers can scan items themselves and access product information instantly. This reduces queues in-store and also frees up staff to focus on more value-driven tasks like customer support.

Some stores are even introducing smart carts, where products are scanned by image recognition as they’re put in the trolley, and charged automatically to customers’ digital wallets when they leave. We’re expecting to see more experimentation with self-service models, as retailers seek to make the in-store experience as seamless as their online service.

There’s a massive choice of platforms, services, and applications to help retailers improve their fulfilment strategies – but it’s very easy to end up with a disjointed and hard-to-manage experience if they aren’t all knitted together effectively.

Working with our partners, such as BT, we deliver solutions that bring together security, platforms, software, connectivity, and management services to support your business.

Here’s what this can mean for you:

• Simple, accurate, and low-cost annual stocktakes and cycle counts.
• In-store teams with devices and software to make stocktaking easy – and you’ll be able to monitor live progress remotely via dashboards and analytics.
• High customer satisfaction by optimising on-shelf availability – we can use robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor your shelves and create tasks for staff to replenish stock, update shelf labels, or adjust layout.
• Support to make your omnichannel fulfilment seamless – our solution provides a real-time view of the RFID-tagged items in your store so your staff can always track items easily.
• Helping you track and manage assets throughout your supply chain with real-time location data that we translate into the visibility you need.

As a part of BT’s partner ecosystem, we take pride in delivering innovative solutions that make better business simple.

1. Zebra, 14th Annual Zebra Global Shopper Study, 2021