The Future is Here: The Rise of Contactless Commerce
The pandemic must have fast-tracked a few of the transformations in contactless commerce. The end user is trying to get all his outfits, groceries, and shopping done via online platforms and stores without human interaction. Isn’t it marvelous?
In this article, I want to express my thoughts on how the field has evolved and what holds up in it.
1. Voice or Face Based Automation
Voice- and face-based automation in commerce offers a unique opportunity to personalize the shopping experience for customers and increase overall sales for retailers.
Both methods use voice or facial recognition to identify the customers, analyze their preferences and purchase history, and make product recommendations based on that information. These methods also have great potential to improve the customer experience and increase customer loyalty.
Credits: Intel-powered Outdu
Users can interact with self-service terminals and kiosks without touching the screens for navigation, and inputs are accepted only after a face is detected wearing a mask for enhanced security.
Simple, intuitive hand gestures perform scrolling, moving, selecting, and canceling. Audio keywords are used to navigate, and speech is used to enter specific data in alphabets and numbers.
Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken Restaurant is using a new conversational artificial intelligence (AI) solution to increase the speed of service and shorten wait times in their drive-thrus. It is empowered by Hi Auto which answers drive thru customers queries and confirms the order after selecting relavant options in menu.
2. RFIDs
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are tiny strips of metal that transmit radio waves with product information such as brand, price, size, color, inventory levels, and location in the store. RFID tags have replaced barcode labels and can accelerate the checkout process when scanned automatically.
RFID technology has also been used in stores to automate the sale of beverages; customers can take their preferred drinks, wave the item under a reader to get product details and pay by text message. Other retailers, like Amazon Go and JD.Com, have developed “Just Walk Out” and line-free technology that uses sensors and computer vision to track consumer activity and automatically scan and charge items to their accounts.
In addition, RFID tags can interact with customers as every object in a store can interact with them. Retailers can point a reader at a product or display rack to provide information about the product range, brand, price, availability, and other features.
Many retailers have introduced interactive fitting rooms where customers can try on items virtually. Japanese retail giant Uniqlo has introduced a virtual fitting room where customers can stand in front of an AI-enabled mirror and see an image of themselves wearing the product. TriMirror, a Canadian technology company, has also introduced 3-D interactive avatars to help customers check for fit in different garment locations and customize the item as desired.
The innovation of lightweight RFIDs has transformed how we use these devices, as they can be disposable on consumer products. Compared with Barcode scanners, these devices can store more metadata information and be used for more than the checkout process. Walmart acquired Zeekit, a leading dynamic virtual fitting room platform.
Virtual fitting room market forecast to experience a compounding growth of $14.87 billion by 2029 from $4 Billion in 2022.
The recent advancement in cross-border Payment between the governments also better aids another funnel.
3. AI-powered recommendations and Virtual agents
Retail experiences can be curated, advised, and recommended to customers where interacting with customers has become challenging due to the after-effects of a pandemic.
Many startups use AI to develop intelligent conversational chatbots to understand customer shopping patterns. These virtual agents guide the shoppers from discovery to checkout across buying platforms like apps, sites, Instagram, and WhatsApp, which helps sales. Most common customer queries can also be routed to these virtual agents for automated answering.
They generate the store customers from leads to buyers by nurturing their patterns using the contact information. Target the high-value/intent customers by providing personalized product deals and building customers' confidence in the conversion of purchases.
A conversion rate optimization tool known as “Nudge” has a proven track record of increasing conversion rates by up to 12% and average order value by up to 25%. It’s easily customizable and appears as a fully native value-added benefit on your website, driving shoppers to complete purchases and increasing the average order value per conversion.
Recent disruptions in the AI industry, like ChatGPT, will make this segment more personalized by bringing in the external trends and conversations even better shortly.
4. Digital recreation and sensory information
Companies like Gastrograph AI build and train the world’s largest sensory database by digitally measuring the flavors. They are also helping CPG companies create breakthrough products or optimize existing ones for specific markets worldwide.
AI’s self-learning system can determine which flavor and preference patterns work best in each place.
“We have modeled over 1,000 flavor signatures to date (and counting) that are easy to interpret by formulators,” its website states. Artificial intelligence can “lift and shift” your data and identify small, impactful changes to optimize your product for an untapped market. Avoid complete product reformulation, and access new markets with confidence that your product will succeed.
Similarly, there are advances in digital recreations of the products through holographs which can be used for buyer interaction without needing a VR headset. These ideas can also be leveraged for buyer interaction and improve customer purchase and retention rates when customers need clarification about which products to choose.
Summary:
As discussed, the rise of contactless commerce and how technology transforms our shop. It explores four primary areas of innovation, including voice and face-based automation, RFID technology, AI-powered recommendations and virtual agents, and digital recreation and sensory information.
The article highlights how these technologies are helping retailers personalize the shopping experience for customers, increase sales, and improve customer loyalty. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of contactless commerce, and the article predicts that technology will continue to play a significant role in the future of retail.
Thanks for reading!…
Watch this space for more additions to the list of topics. Feel free to shoot me any questions in the comments below or connect with me on LinkedIn.
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