Launching, or hugely boosting, click & collect slots; reconfiguring for social distancing; offering more self-checkouts (SCO) and personal shopping services; as well as other measures, bear testament to a remarkable pace of innovation.
As we look forward to hopefully a brighter future, we need to ask, ‘What’s next’.
To answer that question, it’s imperative to analyze the post-COVID consumer. What do they want, expect, and need? Below are 5 things that we’ve learnt from shopper research, and discussions with retailers – we explain them in more detail in our new whitepaper 'Mobility, Agility and Profitability’.
It will need less space and be more flexible, with a mix of SCOs, options for Scan & Go and Self Scanning customers to check out directly from the store device, and the freedom to make payments on a SCO, a dedicated POS lane or anywhere via a Mobile POS (POS). The combination of SCO and Self Scanning is offering the choice for consumers to shop with convenience according to the size of their basket. We typically see shoppers:
Open Innovation – permanently
So what does all of this mean? Well, we think that the speed of innovation with which retail responded to the pandemic will need to be maintained. To support this, the technology platforms that underpin retail must be open become more versatile to quickly adjust to new consumer journeys or changing shopper sentiment and to close the perception gap that all the best ideas happen online.
In response to this priority we’ve created ‘Storevolution’ – a vision for today and for the future of retail. It’s designed to create genuinely frictionless experiences for shoppers. Storevolution is built on a comprehensive understanding of market trends, consumer and staff journeys and relevant technology cornerstones that enable retailers to operate with greater agility and sustainability. Mobile apps, devices and platforms are inherently versatile and make it easier to roll out new services. They also help your associates create great experiences for customers while improving job satisfaction, and accelerating store operations from checking inventory to returns management – and beyond.
Our new whitepaper ‘Mobility, Agility and Profitability’ looks in more depth at the Storevolution strategy and how to offer shoppers more convenient and personalized experiences that increase loyalty, drive-up throughput, and grow basket sizes by as much as between 6 and 10 percent.
1,2Zebra Retail Vision Study: The Essential Shopper Experience: Safety, Speed and Convenience
3Zebra 2020 Shopper Study: The Retail Perspective
4Nielsen, Grocery Shopping Consumer Survey, 2020
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