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Retailers are rethinking in-store technologies as shoppers return



After focusing on e-commerce during the pandemic, CIOs now want to bring the same seamless checkout experience to brick-and-mortar stores.

Retail IT leaders are considering technology improvements that would streamline the in-store checkout process, refocusing on an area they say is lagging behind. Retailers have been investing in e-commerce during the pandemic, as many questioned whether shoppers would ever return to brick-and-mortar stores in full force. Two years later, customers are still coming back. According to the American Retail Federation (National Retail Federation), e-commerce now accounts for 16.4 percent of all retail purchases, compared to 18.8 percent at the peak of the epidemic, reports the Wall Street Journal.

IT executives say they risk losing their customer base to outdated in-store technology, though costs may prevent some of those investments from being made. “Physical locations have been left behind,” said Neil Holden, chief information officer of British retailer Halfords Group, adding that the risk of not modernizing is that “it just doesn’t attract customers”.

Technology leaders at companies such as Kroger, Nordstrom and Halfords are exploring what new technologies could improve the checkout process for customers, providing the same seamless in-store experience that customers are used to when shopping online.

At Halfords, which offers automotive and cycling products and services, Holden says they are investigating technology that would allow payments to be sent via sound waves. The cutting-edge technology already used by armies involves encoding data into sound waves and sending them to another device via a speaker. Customers could initiate payments through an app.

Kroger is testing a shopping cart equipped with cameras and sensors that track what customers buy, eliminating the need to scan individual items at checkout, said senior vice president and CIO Yael Cosset. The specialist also stated that he is investigating the possibility of placing cash registers in individual corridors, so that if customers want to pick up an item quickly, they can pay for it on the spot. “There’s an opportunity to remove friction. If customers say they want to grab a sandwich and walk out with it, we can create that experience,” Cosset said.

Dennis Bauer, Nordstrom’s president of credit, loyalty and payment services, said he had his eye on an emerging technology that would allow payments to be accepted via cellphone instead of a traditional payment terminal. NFC chips in smartphones allow users to tap to pay at checkout, but the new technology can also be used to accept payments from a card or smartphone, said Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy at retail technology provider Aptos.

Eliminating separate checkout hardware can provide greater flexibility and convenience, allowing associates to check out customers anywhere in the store and prevent long lines, Bauer said. If retailers were to equip their staff with smartphones for tasks such as stocking, it would also reduce the amount of hardware purchases required by allowing them to use one device for multiple tasks.

However, according to large enterprise CIOs, one of the main barriers to such investments is cost. But even with cost limits, it is not always wise to make investments that the consumer actually wants, Cosset believes. There is technology that allows, for example, completely frictionless shopping, where cameras follow customers in stores and automatically eliminate the phenomenon called stores without cash registers. Due to privacy concerns and the costs of large-scale camera installation, this is not feasible, the expert added.

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Mr.Mario
Mr.Mario
I am a tech enthusiast, cinema lover, and news follower. and i loved to be stay updated with the latest tech trends and developments. With a passion for cyber security, I continuously seeks new knowledge and enjoys learning new things.

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