How Is Technology Casting A Spell In The Retail Space?

Over the days while doing back-to-back stories on remote working, and how has it deemed to be the new normal, it has come to the knowledge that the retail sector hasn’t lagged behind at all. In one of the interviews earlier with Express Computer, an industry expert in the retail space held the view that adapting to the latest forms of technology is more a necessity than an option. Another player in the space, Digital Jalebi looks forward to transforming the retail space and also create tech enabled products. Its founder Nikhil Joshi, says, “Digital Jalebi is building a product that will let retail owners take their physical stores to digital. This virtual store will be immersive and allow users to stroll through and pick any item they like. Much inspiration for the design comes from how our interactions are in the real world.”

That seems like some development indeed. Yet, in a developing nation like India, where most of the population isn’t quote equipped to handle the technical advances, how is it expected for them to cope with this new form of disruption and how would the general audience make use of it? Joshi believes, “each brand having a digital store would get a URL, just like a website. Users can enter the website, sign in and start roaming and exploring products. Several features like Chabot, 360 turn around, adding to cards and requesting video calls would enable users to get very close to a touch and feel experience.”

To complement that it would be worth mentioning about the role of chatbots in contemporary times. The bots undoubtedly have added up much to a user’s ease and convenience. As per estimates by a leading agency, more than 67% of consumers worldwide have used a chatbot for customer support in the last year, and around 85% of all customer interactions would be handled without a human interaction in the upcoming years.

Talking about their company policies, Joshi mentioned that they deploy the use of WebGL and HTML 5 – Web Graphic Language to create realtime 3D spaces for a prolonged and a unique experience to the users. When asked what type of organisations must opt for switching over to such tech based solutions, Joshi mentions, “Every retail brand that was planning to invest in retail spaces, who are interested in leveraging technology and power of analytics should move to virtual retail spaces.”

Any kind of disruption and development determines a change in the behaviourial pattern of consumers. Joshi highlights some:

• Hesitant to go out of houses

• Even in social spaces, want to spend less time…not wanting to touch anything

• Avoid using physical currency

• Wanting to share their decision with others but now visiting social spaces in groups is difficult

• Open to learning new interfaces

• Retail wanting to leverage technologies like AR/VR

• Bring digital stores to customers houses 

 Going by the same lines, and wanting to know how is an immersive technology helping retailers during the lockdown, Nikhil sums up in three,

• Gives them the opportunity to showcase their entire inventory in digital 

• Can easily ship products to customer home 

• Customers on a digital platform get more time to think and look through the product.