Industry expert cites flexible fulfillment, video as leading IT trends
Industry veteran Jill Standish, senior managing director of retailer for Accenture Consulting, recently spoke with Chain Store Age about what she sees as some of the biggest IT-related trends facing the industry. Here is her take on the trends:
Fulfillment: Flexible fulfillment, or the notion of allowing you the customer to name the type of fulfillment option he or she would like, such as curbside service or on-demand delivery from an Uber-type service or traditional home delivery, is probably the biggest technology issue right now, according to said Standish.
“Everyone says it’s easy, but if you log into your favorite retailer’s site, how many don’t have visibility into store-level inventory?” she said.
Standish said that consumers who can view inventory at local stores from a retailer’s website may be more inclined to schedule an in-store pickup if they know an item is readily available. Retailers need to make sure they have the appropriate back-end technology such as inventory and order management solutions, she added, and must also ensure they have the proper back-end processes needed to support flexible fulfillment.
“I talked to a client who started doing store fulfillment during the holiday season,” said Standish. “It produced a huge change in profits, but they didn’t anticipate the need for store labor. There was not enough labor on the floor because there was so much happening in the back room. You must unify processes, not just systems.”
Standish also advised retailers performing flexible fulfillment to pay attention to the consistency of how goods shipped from different locations are packed and shipped, especially higher-end chains.
Video: “It will be further out than the next 12 to 24 months, bur the digital space within retail will become more visual- and video-oriented,” predicted Standish. “Is e-commerce only a digital channel, or is it blurring with video platforms like YouTube?”
As e-commerce inevitably becomes more visually focused, it will look very different than it does today.
“I don’t just mean changes in devices, but millennials and Gen Z get their inspiration from YouTube,” Standish explained. "How do you leverage that? Video will become a means of buying goods, rather than an influencer as it still mostly is today.”
Analytics: Standish sees a key challenge arising as retailers have access to more consumer data and better analytical tools.
“How do you do analytics in such a way you don’t become creepy?” she asked. “At the recent Millennial 20/20 Summit we co-sponsored in London, there was a demonstration of a technology that looks at the shoes of customers as they walk in the store. You can actually get a lot of pretty accurate demographic information about the customer based on their shoes, such as their age, whether they are male or female, and even their income status. And it’s not that intrusive, unlike facial recognition.”
While retailers are busy implementing technologies such as beacons and in-store WiFi designed to collect more information from customers, Standish cautioned that retailers must recognize there are limits to customer comfort.
Innovation: Standish also touched on changes coming in how retailers innovate with technology.
“The wave of the future for retailers implementing new technology is a fast approach,” she said. “Doing things and failing fast. Try things and if they don’t work, stop. Normally, retailers pilot then roll out.”
However, Standish acknowledged that integrating the equipment needed for this type of “fail fast” rollout into the current retail IT environment will be difficult, as will measuring the impact of new technologies as they are implemented.
In addition, she expects that retailers will begin to participate more in broad-based start-up pitch competitions to discover untapped new and innovative technologies.
“Retailers currently make an annual visit to Silicon Valley to check out the new technology,” Standish commented. “Is that the most efficient way?”